"You're a teetotaller too?" I showed a little involuntary astonishment.
He put forward his chin.
"What do _you_ think?" he said confidentially and scornfully. It was
precisely as if he had said: "Do you think that anybody but a born ass
would _not_ be a teetotaller, in my position?"
I sat down on a chair.
"Take th' squab, mester," he said, pointing to the sofa. I took it.
He picked up the candle; then dropped it, and lighted a lamp which was
on the mantelpiece between his vases of blue glass. His movements were
very slow, hesitating and clumsy. Blowing out the candle, which smoked
for a long time, he went with the lamp to the bookcase. As the key of
the bookcase was in his right pocket and the lamp in his right hand he
had to change the lamp, cautiously, from hand to hand. When he opened
the cupboard I saw a rich gleam of silver from every shelf of it except
the lowest, and I could distinguish the forms of ceremonial cups with
pedestals and immense handles.
"I suppose these are your pots?" I said.
"Ay!"
He displayed to me the fruits of his manifold victories. I could see him
straining along endless cinder-paths and highroads under hot suns, his
great knees going up and down like treadles amid the plaudits and howls
of vast populations.
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