Going through Urshot Mr. Skinner was hailed by a lime-burner from the pits over by Hankey and asked if he was looking for his hens.
“You ain’t ‘eard anything of Mithith Thkinner?” he asked.
The lime-burner—his exact phrases need not concern us—expressed his superior interest in hens....
It was already dark—as dark at least as a clear night in the English June can be—when Skinner—or his head at any rate—came into the bar of the Jolly Drovers and said: “Ello! You ‘aven’t ‘eard anything of thith ere thtory bout my ‘enth, ‘ave you?”
“Oh, ‘aven’t we!” said Mr. Fulcher. “Why, part of the story’s been and bust into my stable roof and one chapter smashed a ‘ole in Missis Vicar’s green ‘ouse—I beg ‘er pardon—Conservarratory.”
Skinner came in. “I’d like thomething a little comforting,” he said, “‘ot gin and water’th about my figure,” and everybody began to tell him things about the pullets.
“Grathuth me!” said Skinner.
“You ‘aven’t ‘eard anything about Mithith Thkinner, ‘ave you?” he asked in a pause.
“That we ‘aven’t!” said Mr. Witherspoon. “We ‘aven’t thought of ‘er. We ain’t thought nothing of either of you.”
“Ain’t you been ‘ome to-day?” asked Fulcher over a tankard.