"'Us as is playin' the fool with you?' they says, all together, as it might be.
"'Eggsactly,' I says. 'That is what I says,' I says, 'and that is what I means,' I says. 'First, you asks me for to give you your 'ats; and then, when I offers you some 'ats for you to take what is your own, you starts a-larfin'. If, as you says, you're in a 'urry, perhaps you'll step inside and cast your eyes around, and point out which is your 'ats. You can take which ones you please for all I care; I'm sure you're very welcome.'
"With that they stepped in. When they was in, and I was in, there wasn't much room left for anything but breathin', and 'ardly room enough for that.
"'Where is the 'igh 'ats?' says the stylish-lookin' feller.
"'Where is your eyes?' I says. 'Ain't they all over the place? Why, you're a-steppin' on one now!'
"You should have seen the 'op he gave!
"'These 'ats,' he says, 'from what I can see of 'em--which isn't much--looks to me as if they had all been squashed.'
"'Of course they has!' I says. ''Ow do you suppose I was a-goin' to find room for them if they wasn't? This ain't the Halbit 'All, and yet it ain't the Crystal Pallis!'
"Then they looks at each other again; and, from the way in which they done it, I felt as 'ow there was something which wasn't altogether what it ought to be. So I goes on--
"'If them 'ats hasn't been squashed eggsactly as they ought to have been squashed, that ain't my fault,' I says. 'You ought to have squashed them for yourselves, as the other gents done. I don't know nothing about the squashin' of 'igh 'ats, and I never laid myself out as knowin' nothing. I just put them against my chest and I gives 'em a shove, and then I sits on 'em to make 'em lay down flat. That's all I done!'