"Oh, nowt, nowt—I's warrant not," said Natt, with a gurgling titter.
Paul looked perplexed. Natt had been drinking, nothing surer.
"Why, lad, the wheel is gone—look!"
"I'll not say but it is. We know all about that, we do!"
Paul glanced down again. Liquor got into the brains of some folk, but it had gone into Natt's face. With what an idiotic grin he was looking into one's eyes!
But Paul's heart was full of happiness. His bosom's lord sat lightly on its throne. Natt's face was excruciatingly ridiculous, and Paul laughed at the sight of it. Then Natt laughed, and they both laughed together, each at, neither with, the other. "I don't know nothing, I don't. Oh, no!" chuckled Natt, inwardly. Once he made the remark aloud.
When they came to the vicarage Paul drew up, threw the reins to Natt, and got down.
"Don't wait for me," he said; "drive home."
Natt drove as far homeward as the Flying Horse, and then turned in there for a crack, leaving the trap in the road. Before he left the inn, a discovery yet more astounding, if somewhat less amusing, was made by his swift and subtle intellect.