“Oh, I gits a job in a village; but the feller I worked for corks me one over the ear, so I up an’ gits ag’in—understan’?”
“Have a hard time finding another place?”
Joe grinned.
“Oh, no,” he answered. “Drop me down in the middle of anywheres an’ I’ll land on me feet. I’ve newspapered it a bit.”
“How did you happen to meet Mr. Whiffin?”
Joe failed to respond immediately. The rain was beginning to beat hard against the umbrella, while the furious gusts of wind threatened every instant to tear it away.
Victor drew the oilskin as far up as he could; but the beating drops still found him, and began to trickle off his cap in tiny streams.
“Ugh! This is about the limit,” he groaned.
“If ye failed inter the lake it’d be a heap worse,” remarked Joe, cheerfully. “It were this way, Jumbo—I—I mean Dave—— Whoa there! Confound that off hoss! Whoa—gee! Git over there!—Well, I was lookin’ for a meal ticket, when, of a suddent, I runs across—whoa, gee—Spudger’s Peerless. So I goes in an’ up an’ asks Whiffin for a job. ‘Git out o’ here,’ says Whiffin. ‘Sure—when I’m ready,’ says I. Then he kinder looks at me interested like, an’ says, ‘Who chased yer away from your happy home, kid?’ An’ I up an’ tells him. So he gives me a job as water-carrier.”
“That’s interesting,” said Dave. “Go ahead.”