Page:Herbert Jenkins - Bindle.djvu/119

 bucolic life. At last out of sheer loneliness he climbed up beside the driver.

"'Owd jer like to live 'ere, ole son?" he enquired pleasantly, as they approached a tiny hamlet where a woman, a child, and some ducks and chickens seemed to be the only living inhabitants.

"All right with a bit o' land," responded the driver, looking about him appreciatively. Bindle gazed at his colleague curiously, then, feeling that they had nothing in common regarding the countryside, continued:

"Funny thing you an' me comin' to a temperance fête." Then regarding the driver's face critically, he proceeded: "'Ope you've got yer vanity-case wi' yer. You'll want to powder that nose o' yours 'fore the ladies come. Course it's indigestion, only they mightn't believe it."

The driver grunted.

"Fancy," continued Bindle, "'avin' to 'aul about chairs and make up tables a day like this, an' on lemonade too. Can't yer see it, mate, in glass bottles wi' lemons stuck in the tops and no froth?"

The driver grumbled in his throat.

The start had been an early one and he was dry, despite several ineffectual attempts to allay his thirst at wayside inns.

It was nearly eleven o'clock before a sprinkling of houses warned them that they were approaching Barton Bridge. Soon the pantechnicon was