“Where’s she bound?”
“Boulogne.” (Only the landlord called it Boo-lone.)
“Boo-lone?” repeated the rat-faced, “the very place where Lambkin’s waiting for a word, and you stand there asking me how we’re to get the lad over, with a vessel making for the very port? No, no,” he murmured, looking into the fire, “you ’urt me, Crumblejohn, you ’urt me when you go on like that. You can be stoopid for a whin, and you can be stoopid for a wager, but it ain’t natterel to be quite so stoopid as you are; it ain’t natterel, and it ain’t safe.”
“Well, hang it all, a snivelling, whining ragpicker as may be thankful to be sitting by a fireside in a comferable house, comes and talks to me about stoopid”—Crumblejohn’s wrath broke suddenly into an angry incoherency of words—“comes talking to me about stoopid, I say, well, sir, stoopid yerself, sir, if yer can’t keep a civil tongue in yer head, talking a matter over comferably with a friend, stoopid yerself, Ratface, and be d—d to yer.”
The man with the maimed hand sat smoking while Crumblejohn spluttered and swore.
He could afford to sit there till the anger passed over, for by reason of his superior cunning, he held the landlord in the palm of his hand; and he knew Crumblejohn knew this. So he sat quietly waiting, his crafty eyes upon the fire while he smoked.
After a bit Crumblejohn became quieter, and asked sarcastically if Rat had got any suggestion since he was so thunderin’ clever, and if so, would he mind spitting it out as time was getting on, and if there was going to be any getting the lad on to the captain’s ship artful-like, they’d best be preparing the way.
“Now you show yourself to be the sensible man wot I’ve ever took you for,” replied the rat-faced, “and here’s my little plan according. To-morrow, being the wedding-day, you begs leave to have a word with the bride. You suggests a barrel of apples for her acceptance with your werry best compliments, and if you make so bold as to ask, does the lady stay at Boo-lone, or does she travel? Mistress Bluett, as is to be, answers according, and you congratulates her on her opportoonities of a seafaring life.
“You says you have a favour to ask her, and you knows of a poor sail-maker at Boo-lone; and might you make so bold as to beg Mrs. Bluett to let a sack of sail-yarn, odd pieces and leavings, in short, a package o’ mixed goods, go on board the captain’s vessel, and be left at Boo-lone? You’d take it werry pleasant of her if she’d be agreeable, and you tip her a little tale of the hunchback and his mother, and the hard life they have of it, and how you knows of ’em through being so werry particular to recognise the King’s laws in the matter of liquor, your sister’s husband being in the trade. One thing and another, you’ll have this bale o’ goods all ready, and your speech about it said, just about the moment of starting, when folks’ thoughts are swinging like bees in a wind, and they’re already more in the place they’re going to, than where they’re standing at the time. And what with the good-byes and the God-bless-yous, and the village crowding down to see them off, and you or me carrying the package, and the lad all the time inside it, as tight as a cauliflower, and thanks to you and starvation weighing about half his size, and so on to the boat with a jack-knife in his pocket to cut his way out again, according to instructions and stripes.”
The whining voice ceased, and the two men sat in silence. Then Crumblejohn moved uneasily in his chair.