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And if youll be said by me, continued Handy, youll not write your name to it at all, but just put your mark like the others,the cloud began to clear from Skulpits brow:we all know you can do it if you like, but maybe you wouldnt like to seem uppish, you know. Well, the mark would be best, said Skulpit: one name and the rest marks, wouldnt look well, would it? The worst in the world, said Handy; therethere: and stooping over the petition, the learned clerk made a huge cross on the place left for his signature. Thats the game, said Handy, triumphantly pocketing the petition; were all in a boat now, that is, the nine of us; and as for old Bunce, and his cronies, they may But as he was hobbling off to the door, with a crutch on one side and a stick on the other, he was met by Bunce himself. Well, Handy, and what may old Bunce do? said the grey-haired, upright senior. Handy muttered something, and was departing; but he was stopped in the doorway by the huge frame of the new comer. Youve been doing no good here, Abel Handy, said he, tis plain to see that; and tisnt much good, Im thinking, you ever do. I mind my own business, Master Bunce, muttered the other, and do you do the same. It ant nothing to you what I doesand your spying and poking here wont do no good nor yet no harm. I suppose then, Joe, continued Bunce, not noticing his opponent, if the truth must out, youve stuck your name to that petition of theirs at last. Skulpit looked as though he were about to sink into nothing with shame. What is it to you what he signs? said Handy. I suppose if we all wants to ax for our own, we neednt ax leave of you first, Mr. Bunce, big a man as you are: and as to your sneaking in here, into Jobs room when hes busy, and where youre not wanted Ive knowed Job Skulpit, man and boy, sixty years, said Bunce, looking at the man of whom he spoke, and thats ever since the day he was born. I knowed the mother that bore him, when she and I were little wee things, picking daisies together in the close yonder; and Ive lived under the same roof with him more nor ten years; and after that I may come into his room without axing leave, and yet no sneaking neither. So you can, Mr. Bunce, said Skulpit; so you can, any hour, day or night. And Im free also to tell him my mind, continued Bunce, looking at the one man and addressing the other; and Ill tell him now that hes done a foolish and a wrong thing: hes turned his back upon one who is his best friend; and is playing the game of others, who care nothing for him, whether he be poor or rich, well or ill, alive or dead. A hundred a year? Are the lot of you soft enough to think that if a hundred a year be to be given, its the likes of you that will get it?and he pointed to Billy Gazy, Spriggs, and Crumple. Did any of us ever do anything worth half the money? Was it to make gentlemen of us we were brought in here, when all the world turned against us, and we couldnt longer earn our daily bread? Ant you all as rich in your ways as he in his?and the orator pointed to the side on which the warden lived. Ant you getting all you hoped for, ay, and more than you hoped for? Wouldnt each of you have given the dearest limb of his body to secure that which now makes you so unthankful? We wants what John Hiram left us, said Handy; we wants whats ourn by law; it dont matter what we expected; whats ourn by law should be ourn, and by goles well have it. |
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