"No, sir, I turned honest and she married a coal-v'ipper, v'ich,
though it did come a bit 'ard on me at first, vos all for the best
in the end, for she deweloped a chaffer,--as you might say, a tongue,
d' ye see, sir, and I'm vun as is fond of a quiet life, v'en I can
get it. Howsomever, I turned honest, and come werry near starving
for the first year, but I kept honest, and I ain't never repented
it--so fur. So, as for the prigs, and scamps, and buzmen, and flash
leary coves, I'm up to all their dodges, 'aving been one of them,
d'ye see. And now," said Mr. Shrig, as the big Corporal having
selected divers bottles from his precise array, took himself off to
concoct a jorum of the One and Only--"now sir, what do you think o'
my pal Corporal Dick?"
"A splendid fellow!" said Barnabas.
"'E is that, sir,--so 'e is,--a giant, eh sir?"
"A giant, yes, and handsome too!" said Barnabas.
"V'y you're a sizable cove yourself, sir," nodded Mr. Shrig,
"but you ain't much alongside my pal the Corp, are you? I'm
nat'rally proud of 'im, d'ye see, for 't were me as saved 'im."
"Saved him from what? How?"
"Me being only a smallish chap myself, I've allus 'ad a 'ankering
arter sizable coves. But I never seen a finer figger of a man than
Corporal Dick--height, six foot six and a quarter, chest,
fifty-eight and a narf, and sir--'e were a-going to drownd it all in
the River, all along o' losing his 'and and being drove out o' the
army, v'ich vould ha' been a great vaste of good material, as ye
might say, seeing as there's so much of 'im. It vas a dark night,
the night I found 'im, vith vind and rain, and there vos me and 'im
a-grappling on the edge of a vharf--leastvays I vere a-holding onto
'is leg, d'ye see--ah, and a mortal 'ard struggle it vere too, and
in the end I didn't save 'im arter all."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean as it vere 'im as saved me, for v'ot vith the vind, and the
rain, and the dark, ve lost our footing and over ve vent into the
River together--down and down till I thought as ve should never come
up again, but ve did, o' course, and then, jest as 'ard as 'e'd
struggled to throw 'imself in, 'e fought to get me out, so it vere
'im as really saved me, d'ye see?"