"It's all very well for you to talk, Major Meredyth," said he,
"but your opinions cost you nothing--mine are costing me my
livelihood. It isn't fair."
"You might as well say," I replied, "that I, who have never dared
to steal anything in my life, live in ease and comfort, whereas
poor Bill Sykes, who has devoted all his days to burglary, has
seven years' penal servitude. No, Gedge," said I, gathering up the
reins, "it can't be done. You can't have it both ways."
He put a detaining hand on Hosea's bridle and an evil flash came
into his hard grey eyes.
"I'll have it some other way, then," he said. "A way you've no
idea of. A way that'll knock all you great people of Wellingsford
off your high horses. If you drive me to it, you'll see. I'll bide
my time and I don't care whether it breaks me."
He stamped his foot and tugged at the bridle. Two or three
passers-by halted wonderingly and Prettilove, the hairdresser,
moved across the pavement from his shop door where he had been
taking the air.
"My good fellow," said I, "you have lost your temper and are
talking drivel. Kindly unhand my donkey."
Prettilove, who has a sycophantic sense of humour, burst into a
loud guffaw.
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