Tony was almost angry. "However come'd 'ee, Missis, to let 'em go out to a gen'leman's to tay in thic mess?"
"Stupid! How cude I help o'it?"
"What did 'ee think o'it, Jimmy?"
"The lady gie'd I dree apples!"
Tony, though shocked, was also pleased; Jimmy delighted. Every now and then he draws himself up with a "Coo'h! I been out to tay wi' Mister Ronals!"
They have a strange way, these children, of placing their hands on one, smiling up into one's face, and saying nothing. It has the effect of making one feel their separate, distinct personalities, and, additionally, of making one feel rather proud of the approbation of those small personages who think so much and divulge so little.
6
There has been no fishing. Either the sea has been too rough to ride to a slingstone[1] for blinn and conger, or else too calm, so that the mackerel hookers[2] could not sail out and therefore no fresh bait was to be had. It is quite useless to fish for conger with stale bait. Tony tells me that I ought to be here in a month's time, when he will have fewer pleasure parties to attend to, and will go out for mackerel, rowing if he cannot sail. He says there will have to be a good September hooking season, because, though the summer has been fair, the fisherfolk have not succeeded in putting by enough money to last out the winter, should the herrings fail to come into the bay, as they have failed the last few years. I should like to work at the mackerel hooking with him. Indeed, although I am looking forward to a glorious tramp across Dartmoor, yet I am more than half sorry that I have a room bespoken at Prince Town for the day after to-morrow.
AN INOPPORTUNE REMARK
Putting aside one or two things that are unpleasant—a few disagreeables resolutely faced—it is wonderful how rapidly one feels at home here. The welcome, the goodfellowship, is so satisfying. This morning, the visitor from the hotel, who has Mrs Widger's front room, so far presumed on the fact that we were educated men among uneducated—both gen'lemen, Tony would say—as to remark flippantly though not ungenially, "The Widgers are not bad sorts, are they? I say, what a mouth Mrs Widger's got!"