"
"Trust to me, my boy, trust to me. I've got no wife to worm it out of
me and then run out and cackle it in everybody's hearing. If you trust a
man, let him be a bachelor--let him be a bachelor."
"Well, then, it was so far settled yesterday that I'm to take the
management o' the woods. The captain sent for me t' offer it me, when
I was seeing to the poles and things here and I've agreed to't. But if
anybody asks any questions upstairs, just you take no notice, and turn
the talk to something else, and I'll be obliged to you. Now, let us go
on, for we're pretty nigh the last, I think."
"I know what to do, never fear," said Bartle, moving on. "The news will
be good sauce to my dinner. Aye, aye, my boy, you'll get on. I'll back
you for an eye at measuring and a head-piece for figures, against
any man in this county and you've had good teaching--you've had good
teaching."
When they got upstairs, the question which Arthur had left unsettled, as
to who was to be president, and who vice, was still under discussion, so
that Adam's entrance passed without remark.
"It stands to sense," Mr. Casson was saying, "as old Mr. Poyser, as is
th' oldest man i' the room, should sit at top o' the table. I wasn't
butler fifteen year without learning the rights and the wrongs about
dinner.
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