East nodded.
“Well, old fellow, I will say you are the best hand I know at making the most of your opportunities. I don't know of anyone else who could have made such a good brew out of that stuff and a drop of gin.”
East was not to be mollified by any such compliment. “Have you got many more such jobs as to-day's on hand? I should think they must interfere with reading.”
“No. But I call to-day's a real good job.”
“Do you? I don't agree. Of course it's a matter of taste. I have the honor of holding Her Majesty's commission; so I may be prejudiced, perhaps.”
“What difference does it make whose commission you hold? You wouldn't hold any commission, I know, which would bind you to be a tyrant and oppress the weak and the poor.”
“Humbug about your oppressing! Who is the tyrant, I should like to know, the farmer, or the mob that destroys his property? I don't call Swing's mob the weak and the poor.”
“That's all very well; but I should like to know how you'd feel if you had no work and a starving family. You don't know what people have to suffer. The only wonder is that all the country isn't in a blaze; and it will be if things last as they are much longer. It must be a bad time which makes such men as Harry Winburn into rioters.”
“I don't know anything about Harry Winburn. But I know there's a good deal to be said on the yeomanry side of the question.”
“Well, now, East, just consider this-”