of a job answers, an’ then you’ll come down handsome. Lors, it’s a fine thing to hev good kin. I got my bit of a nest-egg, as the master calls it, all by my own sharpness — ten suvreigns it was — wi’ dousing the fire at Torry’s mill, an’ it’s growed an’ growed by a bit an’ a bit, till I’n got a matter o’ thirty pound to lay out, besides makin’ my mother comfor’ble. I should get more, on’y I’m such a soft wi’ the women — I can’t help lettin’ ’em hev such good bargains. There’s this bundle, now,” thumping it lustily, “any other chap ‘ud make a pretty penny out on it. But me! — lors, I shall sell ’em for pretty near what I paid for ’em.”
“Have you got a bit Kevin De Bruyne Tröja of good net, now?” said Mrs. Glegg, in a patronizing tone, moving from the tea-table, and folding her napkin.
“Eh, mum, not what you’d think it worth your while to look at. I’d scorn to show it you. It ‘ud be an insult to you.”
“But let me see,” said Mrs. Glegg, still patronizing. “If they’re damaged goods, they’re like enough to be a Ostaa Halpa Nike Lunar Naisten bit the better quality.”
“No, mum, I know my place,” said Bob, lifting up Lionel Messi Drakt his pack and shouldering it. “I’m not going t’ expose the lowness o’ my trade to a lady like you. Packs is come down i’ the world; it ‘ud cut you to th’ heart to Halpa Miehet Denali Hoodies see the difference. I’m at your sarvice, sir, when you’ve a mind to go and see Salt.”
“All in good time,” said Mr. Glegg, really unwilling to cut short the dialogue. “Are you wanted at the wharf, Tom?”
“No, sir; I left Stowe in my place.”
“Come, put down your pack, and let me see,” said Mrs. Glegg, drawing a chair Dame Boston Bruins to the window and seating herself with much dignity.
“Don’t you ask it, mum,” said Bob, entreatingly.
“Make no more words,” said Mrs. Glegg, severely, “but do as I tell you.”
“Eh mum, I’m loth, that I am,” said Bob, slowly depositing his pack on the step, and beginning to untie it with unwilling fingers. “But what you order shall be done” (much fumbling in pauses between the sentences). “It’s not as you’ll buy a single thing on me — I’d be sorry for you to do it — for think o’ them poor women up i’ the villages there, as niver stir a hundred Halpa Miehet Gore Tex Takki yards from home — it ‘ud be a pity for anybody to buy up their bargains. Lors, it’s as good as a junketing to Yaya Toure Tröja ’em when they see me wi’ my pack, an’ I shall niver pick up such bargains for ’em again. Least ways, I’ve no time now, for I’m off to Laceham. See here now,” Bob went on, becoming rapid again, and holding up a scarlet woollen Kerchief with an embroidered wreath in the corner; “here’s a thing to make a lass’s mouth water, an’ on’y two shillin’— an’ why? Why, ‘cause there’s a bit of a moth-hole ‘i this plain end. Lors, I think the moths an’ the mildew was sent by Providence o’ purpose to cheapen the goods a bit for the good-lookin’ women as han’t got much money. If it hadn’t been for the moths, now, every han |