so broad behind, and so
narrow at the shoulders. He wanted to ask if the shape were at all
common, but felt shy. He stole a glance at the silver ring in Joby's
left ear, and blushed when Joby turned and caught him.

"Here, catch hold!" said Joby handing him the whip. "Only you
mustn't use it too fierce."

"Thank you."

"I suppose you'll be a scholar, like your father? Can ee spell?"

"Yes."

"Cipher?"

"Yes."

"That's more than I can. I counts upon my fingers. When they be
used up, I begins upon my buttons. I ha'n't got no buttons--visible
that is--'pon my week-a-day clothes; so I keeps the long sums for
Sundays, and adds 'em up and down my weskit during sermon.
Don't tell any person."

"I won't."

"That's right. I don't want it known. Ever see a gipsy?"

"Oh, yes--often."

"Next time you see one you'll know why he wears so many buttons.
You've a lot to learn."

The van zigzagged down one hill and up another, and halted at a
turnpike. An old woman in a pink sun-bonnet bustled out and handed
Joby a pink ticket. A little way beyond they passed the angle of a
mining district, with four or five engine-houses high up like castles
on the hillside, and rows of stamps clattering and working up and
down like ogres' teeth. Next they came to a church town, with a
green and a heap of linen spread to dry (for it was Tuesday), and a
flock of geese that ran and hissed after the van, until Joby took the
whip and, leaning out, looped the gander by the neck and pulled him
along in the dust. The sailor-boys shouted with laughter and struck
up a song about a fox and a goose, which lasted all the way up a long
hill and brought them to a second turnpike, on the edge of the moors.
Here lived an old woman in a blue sun-bonnet; and she handed Joby a
yellow-ticket.

"But why does she wear a blue bonnet and give yellow tickets?" Taffy
asked, as they drove on.

Joby considered for a minute. "Ah, you're one to take notice, I see.
That's right, keep your eyes skinned when you travel."

Taffy had to think this out. The country was changing now. They had
left stubble fields and hedges behind, and before them the granite
road stretched like a white ribbon, with moors on either hand, dotted
with peat-ricks and reedy pools and cropping ponies, and rimmed in
the distance with clay-works glistening in the sunny weather.

"What sort of place is Nannizabuloe?"

"I don't go on there. I drop you at Indian Queens."

"