The Adventures of Harry Richmond — CompleteMeredith, George
General
The Adventures of Harry Richmond — Complete
Meredith, George
Adventure and adventurers -- Fiction
He was rather amusing. He remarked that he put no questions to me,
because he put no question to anybody, because answers excited him
about subjects that had no particular interest to him, and did not
benefit him to the extent of a pipe of 'tobacco; and all through not
being inquisitive, yesterday afternoon he had obtained, as if it had
been chucked into his lap, a fine-flavoured fat goose honourably for
his supper, besides bottles of ale, bottles of ginger-pop, and a
fair-earned half-crown. That was through his not being inquisitive, and
he was not going to be inquisitive now, knowing me for a gentleman: my
master had tipped him half-a-crown.
Fortunately for him, and perhaps for my liberty, he employed a verb
marvellously enlightening to a schoolboy. I tipped him another
half-crown. He thanked me, observing that there were days when you lay
on your back and the sky rained apples; while there were other days
when you wore your fingers down to the first joint to catch a flea.
Such was Fortune!
In a friendly manner he advised me to go to school; if not there, then
to go home. My idea, which I had only partly conceived, was to have a
look at Riversley over a hedge, kiss my aunt Dorothy unaware, and fly
subsequently in search of my father. Breakfast, however, was my
immediate thought. He and the girl sat down to breakfast at the inn as
my guests. We ate muttonchops and eggs, and drank coffee. After it,
though I had no suspicions, I noticed that the man grew thoughtful. He
proposed to me, supposing I had no objection against slow travelling,
to join company for a couple of days, if I was for Hampshire, which I
stated was the county I meant to visit.
'Well then, here now, come along, d'ye see, look,' said he, 'I mustn't
be pounced on, and no missing young gentleman in my society, and me
took half-a-crown for his absence; that won't do. You get on pretty
well with the gal, and that's a screaming farce: none of us do. Lord!
she looks down on such scum as us. She's gipsy blood, true sort;
everything's sausages that gets into their pockets, no matter what it
was when it was out. Well then, now, here, you and the gal go t' other
side o' Bed'lming, and you wait for us on the heath, and we's be there
to comfort ye 'fore dark. Is it a fister?'
He held out his hand; I agreed; and he remarked that he now counted a
breakfast in the list of his gains from never asking questions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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