Dickie, feeling anxiously in his pockets for some coin of sufficient size to be worthy of Mr. Deeds' acceptance, ejaculated involuntarily:—"Oh! are there? I'd give anything to see them."
"Sixpence 'ud do most er they 'ere shows, I expect. The wild beastises 'ud run into a shilling may be."—The old postboy made a joyless, creaking sound, bearing but slightest affinity to laughter. "But you 'ud see your way round more'n a shilling, Sir Richard. A terrible, rich, young gentleman, by what they tells me."
Something a trifle malicious obtained in this attempt at jocosity, causing Dickie to bend down rather hastily over the wheel, and thrust his offering into the crumpled, shaky hands.
"There," he said. "Oh! it's nothing. I'm so pleased you—you don't mind. Where do you say this show is?"
"Gor a'mighty bless 'e, sir," the old man whimpered, with a change of tone. "'Tain't every day poor old Jackie Deeds runs across a rich, young gentleman as ull give him 'arf a crown. Times is bad, mortal bad—couldn't be much wuss."
"I'm so sorry," Richard answered. He felt apologetic, as though in some manner responsible for the decay of the coaching system and his companion's fallen estate.
"Mortal bad, couldn't be no wuss."
"I'm very sorry. But about the show—where is it please?" the boy asked again, a little anxious to change the subject.
"Oh! that there show. 'Tain't much of a show neither, by what they tells me."
Mr. Deeds spoke with sudden irritability. Uplifted by the possession of a half crown, he became contemptuous of the present, jealous of the past when such coin was more plentiful with him.