“Is it though?” said Mr. Barkis.

He seemed to find an immense fund of reflection in this circumstance, and sat pondering and inwardly whistling for some time.

“Well!” he resumed at length. “Says you, ‘Peggotty! Barkis is waitin’ for a answer.’ Says she, perhaps, ‘Answer to what?’ Says you, ‘To what I told you.’ ‘What is that?’ says she. ‘Barkis is willin’,’ says you.”

This extremely artful suggestion Mr. Barkis accompanied with a nudge of his elbow that gave me quite a stitch in my side. After that, he slouched over his horse in his usual manner; and made no other reference to the subject except, half an hour afterwards, taking a piece of chalk from his pocket, and writing up, inside the tilt of the cart, “Clara Peggotty”⁠—apparently as a private memorandum.