However, I'd been caught once or twice unawares, so
this time I thought I'd be up to it, and I moved a dry duster
wherever I went, to kneel upon in case he began when I were in a
wet place. By-and-by I thought, if the man would pray it would be
a blessing, for it would prevent his sending his eyes after me
wherever I went; for when they takes to praying they shuts their
eyes, and quivers th' lids in a queer kind o' way--them
Dissenters does. I can speak pretty plain to you, for you're bred
in the Church like mysel', and must find it as out o' the way as
I do to be among dissenting folk. God forbid I should speak
disrespectful of Master Thurstan and Miss Faith, though; I never
think on them as Church or Dissenters, but just as Christians.
But to come back to Jerry. First, I tried always to be cleaning
at his back; but when he wheeled round, so as always to face me,
I thought I'd try a different game. So, says I, 'Master Dixon, I
ax your pardon, but I must pipeclay under your chair. Will you
please to move?' Well, he moved; and by-and-by I was at him again
with the same words; and at after that, again and again, till he
were always moving about wi' his chair behind him, like a snail
as carries its house on its back. And the great gaupus never seed
that I were pipeclaying the same places twice over. At last I got
desperate cross, he were so in my way; so I made two big crosses
on the tails of his brown coat; for you see, wherever he went, up
or down, he drew out the tails of his coat from under him, and
stuck them through the bars of the chair; and flesh and blood
could not resist pipeclaying them for him; and a pretty brushing
he'd have, I reckon, to get it off again.
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