“Hope you’re quite well, sir,” said the landlady, with much humility.
“What’ll thee please to take, sir?” asked Bumpkin.
“Well, now, I daresay you’ll think me remarkable strange, Mr. Bumpkin, but I’m going to say something which I very very seldom indulge in, but it’s good, I believe, for indigestion. I will take a little—just a very small quantity—of gin, with some hot water, and a large lump of sugar, to destroy the alcohol.”
“Ha!” said the knowing Bumpkin; “that’s wot we call gin-and-water in our part of the country. So’ll I, Mrs. Oldtimes, but not too much hot water for I. What’ll thee smoke, sir?”
“Thank you, one of those cheroots that my lord praised so much the last time we was ’ere.”
“If you please, sir,” said the landlady, with a very good-natured smile.
“Well,” said the O’Rapley, in his patronizing manner; “and how have we got on to-day? let us hear all about it. Come, your good health, Mr. Bumkin, and success to our lawsuit. I call it ours now, for I really feel as interested in it as you do yourself; by-the-bye, what’s it all about, Mr. Bumpkin?”
“Well, sir, you see,” replied the astute man, “I hardly knows; it beginnd about a pig, but what it’s
about now, be more un I can tell thee. I think it be salt and trespass.”
“You have not enquired?”