There was free ale for a month for Cole.
Scarcely less capable of burlesque than the exciseman’s gait was the manner in which, coming out of his house, he was wont to bid those about the clogger’s shop good-morning. (There was always somebody to bid good-morning to). His wont was to repeat the greeting over and over again, running off into a little diminuendo of “good-mornings,” and ending with his “Hn! hn!” or a little nervous catch of his breath; and of this, also, the merry clogger made a travesty. Taking the name of his magpie, Jacko Macacco, he practised a string of Macacco—cacco—caccos, until the bird himself caught the trick, and the magpie’s final “Hn!” convulsed all who heard it. Then Cole began habitually to double and repeat terminations, often achieving ludicrous accidental results. This again (being a conscientious artist) he developed; and certain combinations were arrived at of which the syllables, run together and reiterated, made new disreputable words and meanings. On Thursdays the Back o’ th’ Mooiners would gather in the clogger’s shop after the market. Cole would mark spectacles of soot about his eyes, making the resemblance startling. He would button up his coat and draw on the clogs, and Mish Murgatroyd would laugh till the veins started out on his calf-licked forehead. Once, with clog-soles, they repeated the rhythmic racket of the pieceboards, and the clogger was a little sheep-faced next morning when the exciseman passed; but Cope greeted him as usual, and stumped down the croft, murmuring his refrain of “Good-morning—morning, morning, morning—ah!”
Thus the Gazette. Elsewhere the new-comer, if less derisively taken, was not accepted much more seriously. He had confessed to a weakly stomach for liquor; but he was not averse to sitting for an hour of an evening in the “Cross Pipes,” sipping his weak brandy and water, entering once in a while deferentially into the general conversation, and so ready with the hospitality of his snuffbox (though he himself did not snuff), that he seemed a little cringingly desirous of conciliating all the world. That the disproportion of his stature should be less apparent, he invariably sat with his chair drawn close up to the table; but the presence of dogs beneath the board always disturbed him. On one occasion, when it was jestingly remarked that something must ail his snuff that he did not use it himself, he gave a little snigger, took snuff, sneezed immoderately, and at each sneeze his short legs gave an absurd little kick on the seat of his chair, almost as if a pair of legs should hiccough. They did not roar in his face, as the Gazette would have done; but it was tickling all the same. He invariably addressed even the humblest as “Mr.”
Once, and once only (if the drawing of his chair up to the table be excepted), he showed sensitiveness, and of that Arthur Monjoy was unwittingly the cause.
They were leaving the “Cross Pipes” one evening together, and had passed to the outer door; and Monjoy, who was a couple of paces in front, held open the heavy door (which else would have swung to again) in such a manner that Jeremy Cope was compelled to walk under his outstretched arm. It was dark in the entry, but Monjoy heard a little sound as of teeth gritted together, and the exciseman passed under his arm with a foot or so to spare. On the steps he turned to Monjoy.
“That—that, Mr. Monjoy,” he stammered, “that was a little gratuitous, was it not? I think you will agree, Mr. Monjoy——”
“Eh?” said Monjoy, and suddenly he took his meaning. “Oh, the devil!—Nay, hang me, Cope, if I meant to pain you!”
“You must pardon me, Mr. Monjoy, if I suggest that you, as compared with most men, are as exceptional as I. I—I—I——”
“Nay, you shall not say another word about it. I was to blame——”
Cope sniggered.