Danby eyed him keenly and wistfully. “Are you laughing at me?” he asked. “Me?”
“Laffin’? Why, you’d make an old sow laff.”
“You amaze me,” said Danby. He gave the man another shilling. “Get further drinks on your way back. You’re—you’re a pink pill for pale people, old boy.”
“Ah must go,” said Pippard reluctantly.
“Yes, you trudge off to the old woman and get your dinner. I’ll drink your health in a glass of water and a tabloid.”
Pippard got into his coat and re-lit a short black clay.
“Well, good day, and thankee.”
“Good day, and thank you.” Danby held out his hand. It was thin and pale. It was grasped and shaken monstrously. “That’s right—hurt it. Go on; hurt it. You make me feel almost manly.... Good day and good luck! My love to the old woman and the kids, and the rabbit, and the old dog, and granny.”
Laughing again, the big man marched off, made small work of the gate, and trudged away. Danby followed him up to the gate, and stood watching him curiously and admiringly, and as he watched he spoke his thoughts aloud.
“Good day, giant,” he said. “Good day, simple son of the soil, who eats hearty, drinks like a fish, and digests everything. Good-bye, man who knows nothing, and doesn’t want to know anything. I’d give ten years of my life for five of yours any day. Well, well.”