“What, and have you laughing at me for being cow-hearted, which I won’t deny I am—very!”
“Coming it too strong!” said John. “What kind of a flat do you take me for, to be flammed by such gammon as that?”
“Since you ask me, Mr. Staple, I don’t know as how I take you for a flat at all, not by any manner o’ means!”
“Then stop trying to turn me up sweet, and tell me what the devil you mean by spying on me!”
“Down to every move on the board, ain’t you? Seems to me as how a cove as is as knowing as what you are didn’t ought to be minding a pike,” remarked Stogumber. “What’s more, I couldn’t hardly believe you could be the pike-keeper, not when I clapped my ogles on that beautiful-stepping tit o’ yours! If I was a peevy cove I should suspicion you must have prigged him, but I ain’t. I daresay you come by him honest, though what you want with a bang-up bit of blood and bone—you being what you are—I don’t know! Howsever, it ain’t none of my business—”
“None at all!” John interrupted. “I told you yesterday I’m not a gatekeeper, but a soldier!”
“So you did! And a very handsome trooper you’ve got! In fact, I was mistook in him: I thought he was a prime ’un!”
“Mr. Stogumber,” said John, a grim note in his deep voice, “my horse is not a trooper, as you very well know; and I am only minding the pike to oblige Brean! Now perhaps you’ll tell me—”
“Your cousin,” nodded Stogumber.
“Now perhaps you’ll tell me,” continued John, “why you are so interested in my movements?”