“I suppose old hands were young uns once, Master Linseed,” said he; “and if the boy were never much at oak-graining, I’d back him for sign-painting, if he were taught. Why, the pigs he draas out, look you. I could cut ’em up, and not a piece missing; not a joint, nor as much as would make a pound of sausages. And if a draas pigs, why not osses, why not any other kind?”
“Ay, ay!” said the company.
“I be thinking,” continued Master Chuter, “of a gentlemen as draad out that mare of my father’s that ran in the mail. You remember the coaches, Daddy Angel?”
“Ay, ay, Master Chuter. Between Lonnon and Exeter a ran. Fine days at the Heart of Oak, then, Master Chuter.”
“He weren’t a sign-painter, that I knows on. A were somethin’ more in the gentry way,” said Master Chuter, not, perhaps, quite without malice in the distinction. “He were what they calls in genteel talk a”—
“Artis’,” said Master Linseed, removing his pipe, to supply the missing word with a sense of superiority.
“No, not a artis’,” said Master Chuter, “though it do begin with a A, too. ’Twasn’t a artis’ he was, ’twas a”—
“Ammytoor,” said the travelled sign-painter.
“That be it,” said the innkeeper. “A ammytoor. And he was short of money, I fancy, and so ’twas settled a should paint this mare of my father’s to set against the bill. And a draad and a squinted at un, and a squinted at un and a draad, and laid the paint on till the pictur’ looked all in a mess, and then he took un away to vinish. But when a sent it home, I thought my vather would have had the law of un. I’m blessed if a hadn’t given the mare four white feet, and shoulders that wouldn’t have pulled a vegetable cart; and she near-wheeler of the mail! I’d lay a pound bill Jan Lake would a done her ever so much better, for as young a hand as a is, if a’d squinted at her as long.”
“Well, well, Master Chuter,” said the painter and decorator, rising to go, “let the boy draw pigs and osses for his living. And I wish he may find paint as easy as slate-pencil.”