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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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401 to the door of a roadside inn, yet twelve miles short of Portsmouth. ‘Twelve miles,’ said Nicholas, leaning with both hands on his stick, and looking doubtfully at Smike. ‘Twelve long miles,’ repeated the landlord. ‘Is it a good road?’ inquired Nicholas. ‘Very bad,’ said the landlord. As of course, being a landlord, he would say. ‘I want to get on,’ observed Nicholas. hesitating. ‘I scarcely know what to do.’ ‘Don’t let me influence you,’ rejoined the landlord. ‘I wouldn’t go on if it was me.’ ‘Wouldn’t you?’ asked Nicholas, with the same uncertainty. ‘Not if I knew when I was well off,’ said the landlord. And having said it he pulled up his apron, put his hands into his pockets, and, taking a step or two outside the door, looked down the dark road with an assumption of great indifference. A glance at the toil-worn face of Smike determined Nicholas, so without any further consideration he made up his mind to stay where he was. The landlord led them into the kitchen, and as there was a good fire he remarked that it was very cold. If there had happened to be a bad one he would have observed that it was very warm. ‘What can you give us for supper?’ was Nicholas’s natural question. ‘Why--what would you like?’ was the landlord’s no less natural answer. Nicholas suggested cold meat, but there was no cold meat-- poached eggs, but there were no eggs--mutton chops, but there wasn’t a mutton chop within three miles, though there had been |
