“I says, ‘He’s done ten miles, and I’ve done most of the pulling. I reckon I’m a jolly sight more exhausted than he is.
“I went inside and did my business, and when I came out the man was still there. ‘Going back up the hill?’ he says to me.
“Somehow, I didn’t cotton to him from the beginning. ‘Well, I’ve got to get the other side of it,’ I says, ‘and unless you know any patent way of getting over a hill without going up it, I reckon I am.’
“He says, ‘You take my advice: give him a pint of old ale before you start.’
“‘Old ale,’ I says; ‘why he’s a teetotaler.’
“‘Never you mind that,’ he answers; ‘you give him a pint of old ale. I know these ponies; he’s a good ’un, but he ain’t set. A pint of old ale, and he’ll take you up that hill like a cable tramway, and not hurt himself.’
“I don’t know what it is about this class of man. One asks oneself afterwards why one didn’t knock his hat over his eyes and run his head into the nearest horse-trough. But at the time one listens to them. I got a pint of old ale in a hand-bowl, and brought it out. About half-a-dozen chaps were standing round, and of course there was a good deal of chaff.
“‘You’re starting him on the downward course, Jim,’ says one of them. ‘He’ll take to gambling, rob a bank, and murder his mother. That’s always the result of a glass of ale, ’cording to the tracts.’
“‘He won’t drink it like that,’ says another; ‘it’s as flat as ditch water. Put a head on it for him.’
“‘Ain’t you got a cigar for him?’ says a third.