and when Mr. and Mrs. Bumpkin and Joe looked, expecting that the boy should be ill, there was not the least sign; so Joe observed with great sagacity:
“Look at that now, maister; I bleeve he’ve smoked afoore.”
“Have ur, sir?” asked Mr. Bumpkin.
“A little,” said Horatio.
“Why, I never smoked afoore I wur turned twenty,” said the farmer.
“I believe the right time now is fourteen,” observed the youth; “it used to be twenty, I have heard father say; but everything has been altered by the Judicature Act.”
“Look at that air,” said Joe, “he’ve eeard father say. You knows a thing or two, I’ll warrant, Mr. —.”
Here Joe was baffled, and coming so abruptly to an end of his address, Mr. Bumpkin took the matter up, and asked, if he might make so bold, what the youth’s name might be.
“Horatio Snigger,” answered that gentleman.
“When will this ere case be on, think’ee, sir?” inquired Mr. Bumpkin.