Page:Dickens - A Child s History of England, 1900.djvu/765

Rh —and then tell me that you are in a wholesome state. The fact is, Mr. Mopes, that you are not only a nuisance—"

"A nuisance?" repeated the hermit, fiercely.

"What is a place in this obscene state of dilapidation but a nuisance? What is a man in your obscene state of dilapidation but a nuisance? Then, as you very well know, you cannot do without an audience, and your audience is a nuisance. You attract all the disreputable vagabonds and prowlers within ten miles round, by exhibiting yourself to them in that objectionable blanket, and by throwing copper money among them, and giving them drink out of those very dirty jars and bottles that I see in there (their stomachs need be strong!); and in short," said Mr. Traveller, summing up in a quietly and comfortably settled manner, "you are a nuisance, and this keimel is a nuisance, and the audience that you cannot possibly dispense with is a nuisance, and the nuisance is not merely a local nuisance, because it is a general nuisance to know that there can be such a nuisance left in civilization so very long after its time,"

"Will you go away? I have a gun in here," said the hermit.

"Pooh!"

"I have!"

"Now, I put it to you. Did I say you had not? And as to going away, didn't I say 1 am not going away? You have made me forget where I was. I now remember that I was remarking on your conduct being a nuisance. Moreover, it is in the last and lowest degree inconsequent foolishness and weakness."

"Weakness?" echoed the hermit.

"Weakness," said ]Mr. Traveller, with his former comfortably settled final air.

"I weak, you fool?" cried the hermit— " I, who have held to my purpose, and my diet, and my only bed there, all these years?"

"The more the years, the weaker you," returned Mr. Traveller. "Though the years are not so many as folks say, and as you willingly take credit for. The crust upon your face is thick and dark, Mr. Mopes, but I can see enough of you through it, to see that you are still a young man."