Bundock was quelled. “Well, I can’t stop gammicking,” he said, shouldering his bag.
“Won’t you have a glass of pagles wine?” said Martha, relapsing to earth.
“No, thank you. I’ve got a letter for Frog Cottage too!”
“For Master Peartree!” cried Martha. “And all in one morning. Well, if that’s not a miracle!”
“You and your miracles!” he said with a Tom Paine brutality. “Why I saved up yours till another came for Swash End. And so I’ve managed to kill——” His face suddenly changed. The brutal look turned beatific. But his sentence was frozen. The good couple regarded him dubiously.
“What’s amiss?” cried Martha.
Bundock gasped for expression like a salmon on a slab. “To kill” burst from his lips again, but the rest was choked in a spasm of cachinnation.
“You’ll kill yourself laughin’,” said Caleb.
Bundock mastered himself with a mighty effort. “So as to kill—ha, ha, ha!—to kill—ha, ha, ha!—two frogs—ha, ha, ha!—with one stone!”
Martha corrected him coldly: “Two birds, you mean.”