“Retail, do you mean?” said the puzzled Tony.
Will, who had listened to the conversation with an ever-expanding grin, here burst into a guffaw. Tony turned on him.
“Is he kidding me?” he asked half angrily, half amicably.
The answer—like Will’s departure from this enthralling parlour—was staved off by the advent of yet another head popped into the doorway. This time it was a heavily greased head with scrupulously parted hair, and was attached to a spruce young man with a spring posy in his buttonhole. But his bear’s-grease out smelt his primroses.
“Hullo, Tony!” cried the aromatic apparition. “Up already!”
“I’ve got to work for my living,” Mr. Flippance retorted. “The dormouse season is over. You coming in, Charley, to see the show to-night?”
“Me! I’ve got better things to do, old boy.” The young landlord turned to the Deacon. “Can you let me have five or six live ’uns?”
The Deacon shook his head. “Oi don’t want to disoblige brother. Oi do my duty according to Peter—‘nat’ral brute beasts made to be taken and destroyed’—but they bain’t meant by the Almoighty to be taken for sport, and Oi don’t howd with fox-hunting neither.”
“So I see.” Mr. Charles Mott glanced glumly at the backs of the pictures.
“Ef you want to be riddy o’ warmints, shoot ’em, says Oi, or nip their brushes in traps.”