Mr. Toosypegs, though inwardly surmising Mr. Harkins meant the croup, thought it a very likely effect to be brought about by either.
“Then Sary Jane took the brown skeeters, hand I ’ad the lum-beggar hin my hown back, but on the whole we were all pretty well, thanky!”
“I am real glad to hear it,” said Mr. Toosypegs, with friendly warmth. “I’ve been pretty well myself since, too. I’m very much obliged to you.”
“Let’s see, it’s near a month, hain’t it, since the night I took you to London?” said Mr. Harkins.
“Three weeks and five days exactly,” said Mr. Toosypegs, briskly.
“I suppose you don’t disremember the hold gipsy has we took him that night—do you? ‘I was a stranger hand you took me him.’ That’s in the Bible, Mr. Toosypegs,” said Mr. Harkins, drawing down the corners of his mouth, and looking pious, and giving Mr. Toosypegs a dig in the ribs, to mark the beauty of the quotation.
“Yes, Mr. Harkins, but not so hard, if you please—it hurts,” said Mr. Toosypegs, with tears in his eyes, as he rubbed the place.
“What does? that there piece hout the Bible?” said Mr. Harkins, with one of his sudden bursts of fierceness.
“Oh, Lor’, no!” said the deeply-scandalized Mr. Toosypegs, surprised into profanity by the enormity of the charge. “It’s your elbow, Mr. Harkins, it hurts,” said Mr. Toosypegs, with a subdued sniffle.
“Humph!” grunted Mr. Harkins; “well hit’s hof no squenceyance, but you don’t disremember the hold gipsy-woman we took in, do you?”