Master George?"

"Regularly. I hope you don't object, Joey?"

"_I_ don't, bless you. But Wapours objects that you're too young. You're
both on you too young."

"We shall got over that objection day by day, Joey."

"Ay, Master George; but I shall day by day get over the objection that
I'm too old, and so I shan't be capable of seeing much improvement in
you."

The retort so tickled Joey Ladle that he grunted forth a laugh and
delivered it again, grunting forth another laugh after the second edition
of "improvement in you."

"But what's no laughing matter, Master George," he resumed, straightening
his back once more, "is, that young Master Wilding has gone and changed
the luck. Mark my words. He has changed the luck, and he'll find it
out. _I_ ain't been down here all my life for nothing! _I_ know by what
I notices down here, when it's a-going to rain, when it's a-going to hold
up, when it's a-going to blow, when it's a-going to be calm. _I_ know,
by what I notices down here, when the luck's changed, quite as well."

"Has this growth on the roof anything to do with your divination?" asked
Vendale, holding his light towards a gloomy ragged growth of dark fungus,
pendent from the arches with a very disagreeable and repellent effect.
"We are famous for this growth in this vault, aren't we?"