"I hope so."

"I wish them all well out of it," returned Bintrey, with much heartiness.
"Good-bye, sir."

They shook hands and parted. Then (first knocking with his knuckles for
leave) entered to Mr. Wilding from a door of communication between his
private counting-house and that in which his clerks sat, the Head
Cellarman of the cellars of Wilding and Co., Wine Merchants, and erst
Head Cellarman of the cellars of Pebbleson Nephew. The Joey Ladle in
question. A slow and ponderous man, of the drayman order of human
architecture, dressed in a corrugated suit and bibbed apron, apparently a
composite of door-mat and rhinoceros-hide.

"Respecting this same boarding and lodging, Young Master Wilding," said
he.

"Yes, Joey?"

"Speaking for myself, Young Master Wilding--and I never did speak and I
never do speak for no one else--_I_ don't want no boarding nor yet no
lodging. But if you wish to board me and to lodge me, take me. I can
peck as well as most men. Where I peck ain't so high a object with me as
What I peck. Nor even so high a object with me as How Much I peck. Is
all to live in the house, Young Master Wilding? The two other cellarmen,
the three porters, the two 'prentices, and the odd men?"

"Yes. I hope we shall all be an united family, Joey."

"Ah!" said Joey. "I hope they may be."