“We’re the Independence on two legs, warranted sound, and no competition;” and saying to Dahlia:  “Lor’ bless you! there’s no retort in ’em, or I’d say something worth hearing.  It’s like poking lions in cages with raw meat, afore you get a chaffing-match out o’ them.  Some of ’em know me.  They’d be good at it, those fellows.  I’ve heard of good things said by ’em.  But there they sit, and they’ve got no circulation—­ain’t ready, except at old women, or when they catch you in a mess, and getting the worst of it.  Let me tell you; you’ll never get manly chaff out of big bundles o’ fellows with ne’er an atom o’ circulation.  The river’s the place for that.  I’ve heard uncommon good things on the river—­not of ’em, but heard ’em.  T’ other’s most part invention.  And, they tell me, horseback’s a prime thing for chaff.  Circulation, again.  Sharp and lively, I mean; not bawl, and answer over your back—­most part impudence, and nothing else—­and then out of hearing.  That sort o’ chaff’s cowardly.  Boys are stiff young parties—­circulation—­and I don’t tackle them pretty often, ’xcept when I’m going like a ball among nine-pins.  It’s all a matter o’ circulation.  I say, my dear,” Anthony addressed her seriously, “you should never lay hold o’ my arm when you see me going my pace of an afternoon.  I took you for a thief, and worse—­I did.  That I did.  Had you been waiting to see me?”

“A little,” Dahlia replied, breathless.

“You have been ill?”

“A little,” she said.

“You’ve written to the farm?  O’ course you have!”

“Oh! uncle, wait,” moaned Dahlia.

“But, ha’ you been sick, and not written home?”

“Wait; please, wait,” she entreated him.

“I’ll wait,” said Anthony; “but that’s no improvement to queerness; and ’queer’’s your motto.  Now we cross London Bridge.  There’s the Tower that lived in times when no man was safe of keeping his own money, ’cause of grasping kings—­all claws and crown.  I’m Republican as far as ’none o’ them’—­goes.  There’s the ships.  The sun rises behind ’em, and sets afore ’em, and you may fancy, if you like, there’s always gold in their rigging.  Gals o’ your sort think I say, come! tell me, if you are a lady?”

“No, uncle, no!” Dahlia cried, and then drawing in her breath, added:  “not to you.”

“Last time I crossed this bridge with a young woman hanging on my arm, it was your sister; they say she called on you, and you wouldn’t see her; and a gal so good and a gal so true ain’t to be got for a sister every day in the year!  What are you pulling me for?”

Dahlia said nothing, but clung to him with a drooping head, and so they hurried along, until Anthony stopped in front of a shop displaying cups and muffins at the window, and leprous-looking strips of bacon, and sausages that had angled for appetites till they had become pallid sodden things, like washed-out bait.