However, there he stood, and tugged his forelocks to the company, and if Truth really had concealed herself in him she must have been hard set to find her unlikeliest hiding-place.
"Now," said the farmer, marshalling forth his elephant with the confidence of one who delivers his ace of trumps, "tell this young gentleman what ye saw on the night of the fire, Bantam!" The Bantam jerked a bit of a bow to his patron, and then swung round, fully obscuring him from Richard.
Richard fixed his eyes on the floor, while the Bantam in rudest Doric commenced his narrative.

Knowing what was to come, and thoroughly nerved to confute the main incident, Richard barely listened to his barbarous locution: but when the recital arrived at the point where the Bantam affirmed he had seen "T'm Baak'll wi's owen hoies," Richard faced him, and was amazed to find himself being mutely addressed by a series of intensely significant grimaces, signs, and winks.
"What do you mean?
Why are you making those faces at me ?" cried the boy indignantly.
Farmer Blaize leaned round the Bantam to have a look at him, and beheld the stolidest mask ever given to man.
"Bain't makin' no faces at nobody," growled the sulky elephant.
The farmer commanded him to face about and finish.
"A see T'm Baak'll," the Bantam recommenced, and again the contortions of a horrible wink were directed at Richard.

The boy might well believe this churl was lying, and he did, and was emboldened to exclaim-- "You never saw Tom Bakewell set fire to that rick!" The Bantam swore to it, grimacing an accompaniment.
"I tell you," said Richard, "I put the lucifers there myself!" The suborned elephant was staggered.

He meant to telegraph to the young gentleman that he was loyal and true to certain gold pieces that had been given him, and that in the right place and at the right time he should prove so.

Why was he thus suspected?
Why was he not understood?
"A thowt I see 'un, then," muttered the Bantam, trying a middle course.
This brought down on him the farmer, who roared, "Thought! Ye thought! What d'ye mean?
Speak out, and don't be thinkin'.