"You was saying," said the strange man, turning to Joe, "that you was a
blacksmith."
"Yes. I said it, you know," said Joe.
"What'll you drink, Mr.--? You didn't mention your name, by the bye."
Joe mentioned it now, and the strange man called him by it. "What'll you
drink, Mr. Gargery? At my expense? To top up with?"
"Well," said Joe, "to tell you the truth, I ain't much in the habit of
drinking at anybody's expense but my own."
"Habit? No," returned the stranger, "but once and away, and on a
Saturday night too. Come! Put a name to it, Mr. Gargery."
"I wouldn't wish to be stiff company," said Joe. "Rum."
"Rum," repeated the stranger. "And will the other gentleman originate a
sentiment."
"Rum," said Mr. Wopsle.
"Three Rums!" cried the stranger, calling to the landlord. "Glasses
round!"
"This other gentleman," observed Joe, by way of introducing Mr. Wopsle,
"is a gentleman that you would like to hear give it out. Our clerk at
church."
"Aha!" said the stranger, quickly, and cocking his eye at me. "The
lonely church, right out on the marshes, with graves round it!"
"That's it," said Joe.
The stranger, with a comfortable kind of grunt over his pipe, put
his legs up on the settle that he had to himself. He wore a flapping
broad-brimmed traveller's hat, and under it a handkerchief tied over his
head in the manner of a cap: so that he showed no hair. As he looked
at the fire, I thought I saw a cunning expression, followed by a
half-laugh, come into his face.
"I am not acquainted with this country, gentlemen, but it seems a
solitary country towards the river."
"Most marshes is solitary," said Joe.
"No doubt, no doubt. Do you find any gypsies, now, or tramps, or
vagrants of any sort, out there?"
"No," said Joe; "none but a runaway convict now and then. And we don't
find them, easy. Eh, Mr. Wopsle?"
Mr. Wopsle, with a majestic remembrance of old discomfiture, assented;
but not warmly.
"Seems you have been out after such?" asked the stranger.
"Once," returned Joe. "Not that we wanted to take them, you understand;
we went out as lookers on; me, and Mr. Wopsle, and Pip. Didn't us, Pip?"
"Yes, Joe."