“Oh yes, I can,” said Elijah, his every dot bristling. “But if I hadn’t been a noticing man, I should have undone all the good of months of my pots of hair-restorer.”
“Whichever way it be, ’tis agen Nature,” said the Gaffer. “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. But pots be as like as peas. That’s the shopman’s fault, not Jinny’s.”
“Oh, indeed!” cried Elijah savagely. “And what about her bringing me hairpins?”
“Hairpins!” gasped the Gaffer. “Hairpins for a man without hair!”
“Even Samson in his prime didn’t want hairpins!” Elijah pointed out angrily. “But that’s what she brought me a packet of last week, instead of tobacco.”
“Sarve ye right, ye unswept chimbley,” the Gaffer growled, with a grin.
“That ain’t serving me right,” riposted Elijah. “That’s serving me wrong,” he added with redoubled wit. “And wouldn’t take ’em back neither, the little minx, maintained I’d ordered ’em for my ma.”
“Well, she’d want hairpins, wouldn’t she, with all that beautiful raven hair,” said the Gaffer, turning serious. “Happen you ordered ’em for her.”
“I never order anything for her,” said Elijah, waiving the description of her chevelure.
“More shame to you, then, young man. Ye don’t desarve to have her. Same as ye’re too stingy to pay for the hairpins, ye’d best give ’em to her with Daniel Quarles’s love.”