“Ah,” said the Don, “it don’t matter where she ’as ’em, it will cure her.”
“How do ’em sell it—in bottles?”
“No, it isn’t in bottles—you take it by the foot; about nine feet’s considered a goodish dose.”
Mr. Bumpkin looked straight before him, somewhat puzzled at this extraordinary description of a medicine. At length he got a glimmering of the Don’s meaning, and, looking towards, but not quite at him, said:—
“I be up to ’ee, sir!” and the Don laughed, and asked whether his description wasn’t right?
“That be right enough. Zounds! it be right enough. Haw! haw! haw!”
“You never want a second dose,” said the Don, “do you?”
“No, sir—never wants moore ’an one dose; but ’ow comes it, if you please, sir, that these ’ere Chancery chaps have changed their tack; be it they’ve tried ’onest men so long that they be gwine to ’ave a slap at the thieves for a change?”
“Look ’ere,” said the worthy O’Rapley, “you will certainly see the inside of a jail before you set eyes on the outside of a haystack, if you go on like that. It’s contempt of court to speak of Her Majesty’s Judges as ‘chaps’.”
“Beg pardon, sir,” said Bumpkin, “but we must all ’ave a larnin’. I didn’t mane no disruspect to the Lord Judge; but I wur only a axin’ jist the same as you might ax me about anythink on my farm.”