“I warrant I’d get up without any of your arrangements,” said the mariner.
“I daresay you might,” responded the builder slowly; “but what good would that be? You’ve more to do than spike a Jacky Tar at the top; you’ve got to remove the spindle, and that must be roped and let down with caution. There’s a deal of things belonging to all things,” said Newbold sententiously, “and that’s what escapes the likes of you.”
“I bet I’d do it!” said the sailor.
“I bet so would I!” said the mason.
“But,” added the latter, “I ain’t going to risk my precious life and sacrifice time and labour for nothin’.”
“Now look here,” said Westcott, “there be you and me hoverin’ round about this here lovely creetur, each sunnin’ of ourselves in her beamin’ eyes and neither on us gettin’ no closer, and both of us lusty fellows, one accustomed to masts and other to scaffold-poles——”
“I take you,” interrupted the mason; “we between us is to set the weathercock to rights out of love to this adorable female.”
“Not just precisely that,” said the mariner. “Between us won’t do. What if we each went up the steeple simultaneous, and from opposite sides? Wouldn’t the distance atween us be every foot of ascent lessenin’ and lessenin’, till our faces met at the top? And I bet a guinea we wouldn’t kiss there; we’d come to a grapple.”
“Really,” said the widow, with a shudder, “this is startling. A contest on the pinnacle of the spire between you—and all for me. I ain’t worth it.”
“Not worth it!” exclaimed the mason, and was about to fall on his knees, when the sailor pointed to his boot, and brandished his foot menacingly. “I can’t allow that—not in my presence.”