“So, gentlemen, you see that the people in those parts are very clever chaps, and if you take them at their own value, there are none to be found like them in all the world. I have another story for you to prove this.
“One day a poor Jew fell into the Itchen.
“‘Oh, shave me! shave me! vil no one shave me?’ he sang out; but of all the people standing round there wasn’t one who would touch him with his fingers, because they looked on him as a dirty old Jew.
“At last they thought that though he was a Jew it was a shame to let him drown, so half-a-dozen or more of them ran off to get a rake to haul him out. One couldn’t find a rake, and another couldn’t find a rake; so, long before they came back, the poor Jew was drowned. That is the reason why we say, when a chap is a long time doing a thing that he ought to have done in a hurry, ‘He’s gone for a rake to haul out the Jew.’”
“Ay, ay, Mr Bexley, but you know what the Poole man did when his pig got his head through the bars of the gate?” exclaimed Jerry Vincent, with a good-natured laugh. “Why, you see, mates, when he found that he couldn’t haul it out, to save trouble he cut off the beast’s head. Some people in our parts would have sawed through the bars, but we don’t pretend to be wise, you know.
“I don’t mind telling a story against ourselves. Did any of you ever hear why the Downton people are called ‘Moonrakers’? They themselves don’t mind hearing the story. Once upon a time, some Downton men had sunk some tubs in a big pond, and they were hard at work all night raking them up. While they were still engaged, who should come by but a party of custom-house people.
“‘What are you doing there, men?’ they asked. ‘Some mischief, no doubt.’
“‘Oh, no! please, kind gentlemen, we are only trying to rake the moon out of this pond,’ answered the Downton men, quite in a simple voice. You see that the moon was at the time shining brightly down into the pond.
“‘Oh! is that all?’ said the custom-house people, thinking that they were a few simpletons escaped out of a madhouse. On went the custom-house people. After a little time they came back. The smugglers had just got out their last tub. Some clouds meantime had come over the moon. ‘Well, my men, have you got the moon at last?’ said the custom-house officer.
“‘Oh, yes! there’s little doubt about it, for it’s no longer there. If we haven’t got it, perhaps you can tell us who has.’