how could you ask me to lend you any?'

'I am not going to ask you to lend me any.'

'Then you may have it without asking; as I said before, I have fifty
pounds, all lawfully-earnt money, got by fighting in the ring--I will
lend you that, brother.'

'You are very kind,' said I; 'but I will not take it.'

'Then the half of it?'

'Nor the half of it; but it is getting towards evening, I must go back to
the Great City.'

'And what will you do in the Boro Foros?'

'I know not,' said I.

'Earn money?

'If I can.'

'And if you can't?'

'Starve!'

'You look ill, brother,' said Mr. Petulengro.

'I do not feel well; the Great City does not agree with me. Should I be
so fortunate as to earn some money, I would leave the Big City, and take
to the woods and fields.'

'You may do that, brother,' said Mr. Petulengro, 'whether you have money
or not. Our tents and horses are on the other side of yonder wooded
hill, come and stay with us; we shall all be glad of your company, but
more especially myself and my wife Pakomovna.'

'What hill is that?' I demanded.

And then Mr. Petulengro told me the name of the hill. 'We shall stay on
t'other side of the hill a fortnight,' he continued; 'and, as you are
fond of lil-writing, you may employ yourself profitably whilst there. You
can write the lil of him whose dock gallops down that hill every night,
even as the living man was wont to do long ago.'

'Who was he?' I demanded.

'Jemmy Abershaw,' said Mr. Petulengro; 'one of those whom we call Boro
drom engroes, and the gorgios highway-men. I once heard a rye say that
the life of that man would fetch much money; so come to the other side of
the hill, and write the lil in the tent of Jasper and his wife
Pakomovna.'

{picture:'Even as the living man was wont to do long ago.': page307.jpg}

At first I felt inclined to accept the invitation of Mr. Petulengro; a
little consideration, however, determined me to decline it. I had always
been on excellent terms with Mr. Petulengro, but I reflected that people
might be excellent friends when they met occasionally in the street, or
on the heath, or in the wood; but that these very people when living
together in a house, to say nothing of a tent, might quarrel. I
reflected, moreover, that Mr. Petulengro had a wife. I had always, it is
true, been a great favourite with Mrs. Petulengro, who had frequently
been loud in her commendation of the young rye, as she called me, and hi