"'Ullo, matey, 'ow goes it?" he would cry.
"Cheerio!" would come back the reply.
"Look at 'em, Ging, without legs an' arms," Bindle cried, "an' laughin' like 'ell. There ain't much wrong with a country wot can breed that sort o' cove."
From the top of the pantechnicon could be heard Wilkes's persistent cough, whilst Huggles was in charge of the "ribbons."
As they reached the foot of Putney Hill, Bindle slipped off the tail-board, calling to Ginger to do likewise and to Wilkes to come down, "to save the 'orses."
"I don't 'old wiv' walkin' to save 'orses," grumbled Ginger. "I'm tired o' bein' on my feet."
"You ain't so tired o' bein' on your feet," remarked Bindle, "as Gawd is of 'earin' o' the things wot you don't 'old with, Ging. Now, orf you come, ole sport!"
Ginger slowly slid off the tail of the van, and Wilkes clambered down from the roof, and two weary horses were conscious of nearly a quarter of a ton less weight to haul up a tiring hill. Bindle was too popular with his mates for them to refuse him so simple a request as walking up a hill.
On Bindle's head was the inevitable cricket cap of alternate triangles of blue and white, which exposure to all sorts of weather had rendered into two shades of grey. He wore his green baize apron, his nose was as cheery and ruddy and his smile as persistent as ever. At the corners of his mouth were those twitches that he seemed unable to control. To Bindle, existence meant opportunity. As he saw it, each new day might be a day of great happenings, of some supreme joke. To him a joke was the anæsthetic which enabled him to undergo the operation of life.
Blessed with a wife to whom religion was the be-all and end-all of existence, he had once remarked to her, after an eloquent exhortation on her part to come on the side of the Lord, "Wot should I do in 'eaven, Lizzie? I never 'eard of an angel wot was able to see a joke, and they'd jest 'oof me out. 'Eaven's a funny place, an' I can't be funny in their way. I got to go on as I was made."