stood before the fire. By degrees it became an enormous injury to me that he stood before the fire, and I got up, determined to have my share of it. I had to put my hands behind his legs for the poker when I went up to the fire-place to stir the fire, but still pretended not to know him.
`Is this a cut?' said Mr Drummle.
`Oh!' said I, poker in hand; `it's you, is it? How do you do? I was wondering who it was, who kept the fire off.'
With that, I poked tremendously, and having done so, planted myself side by side with Mr Dummle, my shoulders squared and my back to the fire.
`You have just come down?' said Mr Drummle, edging me a little away with his shoulder.
`Yes,' said I, edging him a little away with my shoulder.
`Beastly place,' said Drummle. - `Your part of the country, I think?'
`Yes,' I assented. `I am told it's very like your Shropshire.'
`Not in the least like it,' said Drummle.
Here Mr Drummle looked at his boots, and I looked at mine, and then Mr Drummle looked at my boots, and I looked at his.
`Have you been here long?' I asked, determined not to yield an inch of the fire.
`Long enough to be tired of it,' returned Drummle, pretending to yawn, but equally determined.
`Do you stay here long?'
`Can't say,' answered Mr Drummle. `Do you?'
`Can't say,' said I.
I felt here, through a tingling in my blood, that if Mr Drummle's shoulder had claimed another hair's breadth of room, I should have jerked him into the window; equally, that if my own shoulder had urged a similar claim, Mr Drummle would have jerked me into the nearest box. He whistled a little. So did I.
`Large tract of marshes about here, I believe?' said Drummle.
`Yes. What of that?' said I.
Mr Drummle looked at me, and then at my boots, and then said, `Oh!' and laughed.
`Are you amused, Mr Drummle?'
`No,' said he, `not particularly. I am going out for a ride in the saddle. I mean to explore those marshes for amusement. Out-of-the-way villages there, they tell me. Curious little public-houses - and smithies - and that. Waiter!'
`Yes, sir.'
`Is that horse of mine ready?'
`Brought round to the door, sir.'