"The blighters won't let me pop it! They all want to know how I came by
it! Dash their infernal impudence! Why, they'd have had the cops on me
if I'd stopped to argue about it! You'd better take it yourself. But
I'll be even with some of 'em yet, clash and bash them! I'll burn their
very bad-word houses down about their ears before they're much older!"
In this dreadful way he went on for some time; then I tried to calm him
down and told him he must not feel too much hurt because common, crafty
men in shops regarded him suspiciously. I said--
"You evidently lost your temper with them, and that is never right or
wise. It was your boots that made them doubt you. You ought quietly to
have told them who you are, and about the King shaking hands with you,
and the bank breaking, and so on. Then they would have understood, and
if they had been Christian men, they would have sympathized with you and
very likely have given six or seven shillings for the telescope."