George leaned upon his broom with one hand, and with the other scratched his white head.
“What be a pocket-book, then, Master Lake?” said he, grinning, as if at his own ignorance.
“Thee’s eerd of a pocket-book before now, thee vool, sure-ly!” said the impatient windmiller.
“I’se eerd of a pocket of hops, Master Lake,” said George, after an irritating pause, during which he still smiled, and scratched his poll as if to stimulate recollection.
“Book—book—book! pocket-book!” shouted the miller. “If thee can’t read, thee knows what a book is, thee gawney!”
“What a vool I be, to be sure!” said George, his simple countenance lighted up with a broader smile than before. “I knows a book, sartinly, Master Lake, I knows a book. There’s one,” George continued, speaking even slower than before,—“there’s one inzide, sir,—a big un. On the shelf it be. A Vamly Bible they calls un. And I’m sartin sure it be there,” he concluded, “for a hasn’t been moved since the last time you christened, Master Lake.”
The miller turned away, biting his lip hard, to repress a useless outburst of rage, and George, still smiling sweetly, spun the broom dexterously between his hands, as a man spins the water out of a stable mop. Just before Master Lake had got beyond earshot, George lowered the broom, and began to scratch his head once more. “I be a proper vool, sartinly,” said he; and when the miller heard this, he turned back. “Mother allus said I’d no more sense in my yead than a dumbledore,” George candidly confessed. And by a dumbledore he meant a humble-bee. “It do take me such a time to mind any thing, sir.”
“Well, never mind, Gearge,” said the miller; “if thee’s slow, thee’s sure. What do ’ee remember about the book, now, Gearge? A don’t mind giving thee five shilling, if thee finds un, Gearge.”
“A had un down at the burying, I ’member quite well now, sir. To put the little un’s name in ’twas. I thowt a hadn’t been down zince christening, I be so stoopid sartinly.”
“What are you talking about, ye vool?” roared the miller.