Читать книгу Charles Peace, or The Adventures of a Notorious Burglar онлайн

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“I doant know ’xactly what to say about it,” replied a middle-aged man, who was also in his shirt sleeves. “I tell ye what it be, ye a deal too good for me, a doubt.”

“Noa—​noa, come on,” returned the other, with the mellifluity of a Whitechapel skittle sharper. “Never fear, guv’nor, luck will be sure to change. Doant be so quavery mavery over it. Let’s have one more pint for I’m jolly dry.”

“You start first, then.”

“Get out of my way some of you chaps, and make yourselves look less,” said the young man, in a voice prophetic of victory.

Taking from the ground a wooden missile in the shape of a cheese, he poised it between his fingers as if it had been a pebble, and, casting the whole weight of his body, pitched the ball towards the upright pins.

It struck the front pin on the left shoulder, and, pirouetting round the ring, knocked all down.

“Brayvo—​brayvo!” cried the rustics, knocking their great mugs against the table. “A floorer.”

“That was a squiver,” said one of them. “Nothing like a flat ball to tiddle ’em over.”