"Accounts for what?" fired back the other, catching the sotto voce comment.
"For your being so polite—and—and—"
"Well," fumed the other, "people who have any manners never stop gawking in the middle of their remarks. It an't good breeding."
"Isn't it now? Well, for your looking so fresh and spruce then, I took you for a scarecrow."
"And I take you for a clodpole," glared back his new acquaintance with an affected laugh, "to whom 'twill be a real charity to give twopence a week to learn manners."
Crooked answers.
"That begins at home; keep it for your own necessities, my friend. You see I know how to be generous. But if you're really so amiably disposed towards me—"
"Go about your business."
"That I shall be able to do, when I have gone miles enough to find some one with a tongue in his head, civil enough to direct me to the king's palace."
The other opened his dull eyes in a preternaturally wide-awake manner, and bestowed a scrutinizing stare on Lawrence. "What may you want there?"