Jabez laughed outright. Clearly the countryman must be crazy.
"What's yon daft thingamy aboot?" thought Gubblum. Then aloud, "Ay, my lad, gie us a laal sup o' summat."
Jabez found his risible faculties sorely disturbed by this manner of speech. But he proceeded to fill a pewter. The pot-boy's movements resembled those of a tortoise in celerity.
"He's a stirran lad, yon," thought Gubblum. "He's swaddering like a duck in a puddle."
"Can I sleep here to-neet?" he asked, when Jabez had brought him his beer.
Then the sapient smile on the pot-boy's face ripened into speech.
"I ain't answering for the sleeping," said Jabez, "but happen you may have a bed—he, he, he! I'll ask the missis—he, he, haw!"
"The missis? Hasta never a master, then?" said Gubblum.
Now, Jabez had been warned, with many portentous threats, that in the event of any one asking for the master he was to be as mute as the grave. So in answer to the peddler's question he merely shook his wise head and looked grave and astonishingly innocent.
"No? And how lang hasta been here?"