That comes from being a captain; but, as I tells him,
it's only reasonable as he is captain on board his ship I should be
captain in my house. I suppose you are going to school?"
"No, I am not. My school is just over."
"Going all the way up to London?"
"Yes."
"That's a mercy," the woman said. "I was afraid you might be only
going as far as Canterbury, and then I might have got some big chap up
here who would squeeze me as flat as a pancake. Men is so
unthoughtful, and seems to think as women can stow themselves away
anywheres. I wish you would feel and get your hand in my pocket, young
man. I can't do it nohow, and I ain't sure that I have got my keys
with me; and that girl Eliza will be getting at the bottles and
a-having men in, and then there will be a nice to-do with the lodgers.
Can't you find it? It is in the folds somewhere."
"With much difficulty Ralph found the pocket-hole, and thrusting his
hand in was able to reassure his neighbor by feeling among a mass of
odds and ends a bunch of keys.
"That's a comfort," the woman said. "If one's mind isn't at ease one
can't enjoy traveling."
"I wish my body was at ease," Ralph said. "Don't you think you could
squeeze them a little on the other side and give me an inch or two
more room?"
"I will try," the woman said; "as you seem a civil sort of boy.
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