“Good afternoon!” said I.

“Arternoon!” he answered.

“A fine day!” said I.

“Is it?” said he.

“Why—­to be sure it is,” said I, somewhat taken aback by his manner; “to be sure it is.”

“Oh!” said he, and shifted the straw very dexterously from one corner of his mouth to the other, by some unseen agency, and stared up the road harder than ever.

“What are you looking at?” I inquired.

“’Ill,” said he.

“And why do you look at the hill?”

“Mail,” said he.

“Oh!” said I.

“Ah!” said he.

“Is it the London coach?”

“Ah!” said he.

“Does it stop here?”

“Ah!” said he.

“Do you ever say anything much beside ’ah’?” I inquired.

He stopped chewing the straw, and with his eyes on the distance, seemed to turn this question over in his mind; having done which, he began to chew again.

“Ah!” said he.

“Why, then you can, perhaps, tell me how many miles it is—­”

“Five,” said he.

“I was about to ask how far it was to—­”

“The Wells!” said he.

“Why—­yes, to be sure, but how did you know that?”

“It’s use!” said he.

“What do you mean?”

“They all ask!” said he.

“Who do?”

“Tramps!” said he.

“Oh! so you take me for a tramp?”

“Ah!” said he.

“And you,” said I, “put me in mind of a certain Semi-quavering Friar.”

“Eh?” said he, frowning a little at the hill.

“You’ve never heard of Rabelais, or Panurge, of course,” said I. The Ostler took out his straw, eyed it thoughtfully, and put it back again.

“No,” said he.

“More’s the pity!” said I, and was about to turn away, when he drew the nearest fist abruptly from his pocket, and extended it towards me.

“Look at that!” he commanded.

“Rather dirty,” I commented, “but otherwise a good, useful member, I make no doubt.”

“It’s a-goin’,” said he, alternately drawing in and shooting out the fist in question, “it’s a-goin’ to fill your eye up.”

“Is it?” said I.

“Ah!” said he.

“But what for?”

“I aren’t a Semmy, nor yet a Quaver, an’ as for Friers,” said he, very deliberately, “why—­Frier yourself, says I.”

“Nevertheless,” said I, “you are gifted with a certain terse directness of speech that greatly reminds me of—­”

“Joe!” he called out suddenly over his shoulder.  “Mail, Joe!”