“Then you may,” said Christabel; “for I’m longing to tell you a secret,—one that I’ve kept for, O, ever so long! Now, who was it when you and——”
“Well, then, I wor going to say, when me and Mrs. Dibble—which be my wife,” said Thomas, “once went to a pantomime, and see the clown eat three yards of sausages, and jump through a clock.”
“So you’ve a wife?” said Christabel, disregarding altogether the wonderful feat of the clown in the pantomime.
“Yes; and I’ve bin and run away from her,” said Dibble; “so there’s my secret, and I trusts to your honour.”
“What did you run away for?” asked Christabel.
“Well, ’cos I’d bin and got into trouble in the panic,” said Dibble.
“What’s a panic?” asked Christabel. “I never heard of a panic.”
“Why, you see, it’s a sort of row in the City about what shares be worth, and which buys ’em, and who sells ’em, and whether you’ve got ’em, or the other one; but the great thing of all is to know what a bull is, and which is the bear, and whether, you ought to be one or the ’tother, and whether it’s premium or par, or what the discount be.”
This was one of the longest explanatory speeches that Dibble had ever made, except when he was trying to convince Mrs. Dibble that he was a bull, and could not help it. He looked at Christabel, and fancied that he had given a particularly lucid description of a panic; but the mysterious lady stared in astonishment at Dibble, and said—
“So that’s a panic, is it?”