Anthony tried the beer, remarking, “That's good beer; it don't cost much.”
“It ain't adulterated. By what I read of your London beer, this stuff's not so bad, if you bear in mind it's pure. Pure's my motto. 'Pure, though poor!'”
“Up there, you pay for rank poison,” said Anthony. “So, what do I do? I drink water and thank 'em, that's wise.”
“Saves stomach and purse.” The farmer put a little stress on 'purse.'
“Yes, I calculate I save threepence a day in beer alone,” said Anthony.
“Three times seven's twenty-one, ain't it?”
Mr. Fleming said this, and let out his elbow in a small perplexity, as Anthony took him up: “And fifty-two times twenty-one?”
“Well, that's, that's—how much is that, Mas' Gammon?” the farmer asked in a bellow.
Master Gammon was laboriously and steadily engaged in tightening himself with dumpling. He relaxed his exertions sufficiently to take this new burden on his brain, and immediately cast it off.
“Ah never thinks when I feeds—Ah was al'ays a bad hand at 'counts. Gi'es it up.”