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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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770 “Help!” he cries. “I’ll help you,” says I; and off we set--the wrong wa’! Ho! ho! ho!’ ‘Did you go far?’ asked Nicholas. ‘Far!’ replied John; ‘I run him clean off his legs in quarther of an hoor. To see old schoolmeasther wi’out his hat, skimming along oop to his knees in mud and wather, tumbling over fences, and rowling into ditches, and bawling oot like mad, wi’ his one eye looking sharp out for the lad, and his coat-tails flying out behind, and him spattered wi’ mud all ower, face and all! I tho’t I should ha’ dropped doon, and killed myself wi’ laughing.’ John laughed so heartily at the mere recollection, that he communicated the contagion to both his hearers, and all three burst into peals of laughter, which were renewed again and again, until they could laugh no longer. ‘He’s a bad ’un,’ said John, wiping his eyes; ‘a very bad ’un, is schoolmeasther.’ ‘I can’t bear the sight of him, John,’ said his wife. ‘Coom,’ retorted John, ‘thot’s tidy in you, thot is. If it wa’nt along o’ you, we shouldn’t know nought aboot ’un. Thou know’d ’un first, Tilly, didn’t thou?’ ‘I couldn’t help knowing Fanny Squeers, John,’ returned his wife; ‘she was an old playmate of mine, you know.’ ‘Weel,’ replied John, ‘dean’t I say so, lass? It’s best to be neighbourly, and keep up old acquaintance loike; and what I say is, dean’t quarrel if ’ee can help it. Dinnot think so, Mr Nickleby?’ ‘Certainly,’ returned Nicholas; ‘and you acted upon that principle when I meet you on horseback on the road, after our memorable evening.’ ‘Sure-ly,’ said John. ‘Wa’at I say, I stick by.’ |
