Wheel. But Talbot thinks everybody purse-proud that has a purse.
Burs. (aside). Well, this Wheeler does put one into a good humour with one’s self in spite of one’s teeth. (Aloud.) Talbot says blunt things; but I don’t think he’s what you can call clever—hey, Wheeler?
Wheel. Clever? Oh, not he.
Burs. I think I could walk round him.
Wheel. To be sure you could. Why, do you know, I’ve quizzed him famously myself within this quarter of an hour!
Burs. Indeed! I wish I had been by.
Wheel. So do I, ’faith! It was the best thing. I wanted, you see, to get him out of my way, that I might have the field clear for electioneering to-day. So I bowls up to him with a long face—such a face as this. Mr. Talbot, do you know—I’m sorry to tell you, here’s Jack Smith has just brought the news from Salt Hill. Your mother, in getting into the carriage, slipped, and has broke her leg, and there she’s lying at a farmhouse, two miles off. Is not it true, Jack? said I. I saw the farmer helping her in with my own eyes, cries Jack. Off goes Talbot like an arrow. Quizzed him, quizzed him! said I.
Burs. Ha! ha! ha! quizzed him indeed, with all his cleverness; that was famously done.
Wheel. Ha! ha! ha! With all his cleverness he will be all the evening hunting for the farmhouse and the mother that has broke her leg; so he is out of our way.
Burs. But what need have you to want him out of your way, now Lord John has come over to your side? You have the thing at a dead beat.