“I’d give you a fiver!” parried the knacker in his reckless passion. “Though most people let me have ’em for the trouble of killing ’em,” he added incautiously.
The old man sprang up again. “Git out o’ my house! And don’t ye dare cross my doorstep agen!”
Elijah cowered back in his seat. “But I’ve come on business,” he protested.
“Oi bain’t a-gooin’ to sell Methusalem.”
“That’s not what I came for,” Elijah urged soothingly. “It’s about Jinny.”
“Oi bain’t a-gooin’ to sell Jinny neither.”
Elijah winced. Was it divination or drivel, he wondered.
“You might as well sell her,” he said boldly. “Look how she’s mucking up your business, muddling everything.” And rising and pulling out the pot again, he banged it down on the table.
“My Jinny muddle things! Git out o’ my house!”
Before the Gaffer’s blazing spectacles and furious fangs Elijah backed doorwards.