“Well, I don’t care who the man is,” said Creedle, “they required a good deal to talk about, and that’s true. It won’t be the same with these.”
“No. He is such a projick, you see. And she is a wonderful scholar too!”
“What women do know nowadays!” observed the hollow-turner. “You can’t deceive ’em as you could in my time.”
“What they knowed then was not small,” said John Upjohn. “Always a good deal more than the men! Why, when I went courting my wife that is now, the skilfulness that she would show in keeping me on her pretty side as she walked was beyond all belief. Perhaps you’ve noticed that she’s got a pretty side to her face as well as a plain one?”
“I can’t say I’ve noticed it particular much,” said the hollow-turner, blandly.
“Well,” continued Upjohn, not disconcerted, “she has. All women under the sun be prettier one side than t’other. And, as I was saying, the pains she would take to make me walk on the pretty side were unending! I warrant that whether we were going with the sun or against the sun, uphill or downhill, in wind or in lewth, that wart of hers was always towards the hedge, and that dimple towards me. There was I, too simple to see her wheelings and turnings; and she so artful, though two years younger, that she could lead me with a cotton thread, like a blind ram; for that was in the third climate of our courtship. No; I don’t think the women have got cleverer, for they was never otherwise.”
“How many climates may there be in courtship, Mr. Upjohn?” inquired a youth—the same who had assisted at Winterborne’s Christmas party.
“Five—from the coolest to the hottest—leastwise there was five in mine.”
“Can ye give us the chronicle of ’em, Mr. Upjohn?”
“Yes—I could. I could certainly. But ’tis quite unnecessary. They’ll come to ye by nater, young man, too soon for your good.”