'Say that hammer of mine's a wall--my work. Two; four; and two is
six,' measuring on the pavement. 'Six foot inside that wall is
Mrs. Sapsea.'
'Not really Mrs. Sapsea?'
'Say Mrs. Sapsea. Her wall's thicker, but say Mrs. Sapsea.
Durdles taps, that wall represented by that hammer, and says, after
good sounding: "Something betwixt us!" Sure enough, some rubbish
has been left in that same six-foot space by Durdles's men!'
Jasper opines that such accuracy 'is a gift.'
'I wouldn't have it at a gift,' returns Durdles, by no means
receiving the observation in good part. 'I worked it out for
myself. Durdles comes by HIS knowledge through grubbing deep for
it, and having it up by the roots when it don't want to come.--
Holloa you Deputy!'
'Widdy!' is Deputy's shrill response, standing off again.
'Catch that ha'penny. And don't let me see any more of you to-
night, after we come to the Travellers' Twopenny.'
'Warning!' returns Deputy, having caught the halfpenny, and
appearing by this mystic word to express his assent to the
arrangement.
They have but to cross what was once the vineyard, belonging to
what was once the Monastery, to come into the narrow back lane
wherein stands the crazy wooden house of two low stories currently
known as the Travellers' Twopenny:- a house all warped and
distorted, like the morals of the travellers, with scant remains of
a lattice-work porch over the door, and also of a rustic fence
before its stamped-out garden; by reason of the travellers being so
bound to the premises by a tender sentiment (or so fond of having a
fire by the roadside in the course of the day), that they can never
be persuaded or threatened into departure, without violently
possessing themselves of some wooden forget-me-not, and bearing it
off.
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