'I dunno,' replied the other. 'Who wants to smell things all that way? Why don't yer go and look?'
'Yer can't always,' returned Chippy, 'and when you dussn't go close, it comes in jolly handy to be able to smell 'em, and them wot smoke can't do it. So there ain't no fags for boy scouts!'
'I like a cig now and then,' said the other boy.
'Who's stoppin' yer?' asked Chippy loftily. 'You ain't a boy scout: you don't count.'
This view of the case rather nettled Chippy's acquaintance, and he began to argue the matter. But he was no match for Chippy there. Away went the latter in full burst upon his beloved topic, and the other heard of such pleasures and such fascinating sport that his cigarette went out, and was finally tossed aside, as he listened.
'Yer don't want another in the Ravens, do yer, Chippy?' he asked eagerly.
'Not now,' returned Chippy, 'but we could mek' another patrol, I dessay. I'll talk to Mr. Elliott about it.'
'Righto, Chippy,' returned the other. 'I know plenty as 'ud like to join. I've heard 'em talkin' about it, but I hadn't got 'old of it as you've been givin' it me. Hello, wot's up here? Here's a lark—they're havin' a game wi' old Hoppity Jack, and there's ne'er a copper about.'
While talking, the boys had drawn near the noisy crowd of Skinner's Hole residents gathered around the stalls and shooting-galleries. One of the stalls stood a little away from the rest, and instead of a huge naphtha flare, was only lighted by a couple of candles set in battered old stable-lanterns. The owner of the stall was a queer little bent old man wearing an immensely tall top-hat and a very threadbare suit of black. The collar of his coat was turned up and tied round his neck with a red handkerchief, and the ends of the handkerchief mingled with a flowing grey beard. He was a well-known character of Skinner's Hole, and the boys called him Hoppity Jack, because one of his legs was shorter than the other, so that his head bobbed up and down as he walked.
He kept a small herbalist's shop, and stored it with simples which he rambled far and wide over heath and upland to gather, and dry, and tie up in bunches. On Sundays he betook himself to the public park of Bardon, carrying a small stand. From this stand he delivered long lectures, whenever he could gather an audience, on the subject of the ten lost tribes of Israel. Altogether, he was one of those curious characters whom one finds at times in the byways of life. His many oddities marked him out very distinctly from other people, and often made him a butt for the rude jokes and horseplay of idle loungers on Quay Flat.