"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.