"You'd as lief lower me as not in their eyes, I verily believe."
"I always was one to gather dust."
"An' a fresh spot o' bacon-fat 'pon your weskit, that I've kept the
moths from since goodness knows when!"
Old Jan looked down over his waistcoat. It was of good
"West-of-England broadcloth, and he had worn it on the day when he
married the woman at his side.
"I'm thinking--" he began.
"Hey?"
"I'm thinking I'll find it hard to make friends in--in there. 'Tis
such a pity, to my thinking, that by reggilations we'll be parted so
soon as we get inside. You've a-got so used to my little ways
an' corners, an' we've a-got so many little secrets together an'
old-fash'ned odds an' ends o' knowledge, that you can take my meaning
almost afore I start to speak. An' that's a great comfort to a man o'
my age. It'll be terrible hard, when I wants to talk, to begin at the
beginning every time. There's that old yarn o' mine about Hambly's cow
an' the lawn-mowing machine--I doubt that anybody 'll enjoy it so
much as you always do; an' I've so got out o' the way o' telling the
beginning--which bain't extra funny, though needful to a stranger's
understanding the whole joke--that I 'most forgets how it goes.
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