At the end of the week I was so disheartened that I could stay in the house no longer, but sallied out, I cared not whither, for a day in the fresh air.
As I was sauntering along the road, a cart overtook me, a covered baker’s cart with the name painted outside, “Walker, Baker, Packworth.”
A brilliant idea seized me as I read the legend. Making a sign to the youth in charge to stop, I ran up and asked, “I say, what would you give me a lift for to Packworth?”
“What for? S’pose we say a fifty-pun’ note,” was the facetious reply. “I could do with a fifty-pun’ note pretty comfortable.”
“Oh, but really, how much? I want to go to Packworth awfully, but it’s such a long way to walk.”
“What do you weigh, eh?”
“I don’t know; about seven stone, I think.”
“If you was eight stun I wouldn’t take you, there! But hop up!”
And next moment I found myself bowling merrily along in the baker’s cart all among the loaves and flour-bags to Packworth.
My jovial driver seemed glad of a companion, and we soon got on very good terms, and conversed on a great variety of topics.