The Sketches of Seymour, Robert Seymour [reading books for 7 year olds .txt] 📗

persisted Jim, "an' I can tell you she ain't got a farden to bless herself vith! - an' she's over head-and-ears in debt too, I can tell you; an' she pays nobody - puttin' 'em all off, vith promises to pay wen she's married."

"My heye!" exclaimed the excited Wiggins, thrown all a-back by this very agreeable intention upon his funds.

"More nor that, sir," continued the revengeful Jim, "I know she thinks as she's hooked a preshus flat, an' means to marry you outright jist for vot she can get. An' von't she scatter the dibs? - that's all; she's the extravagantest 'ooman as hever I came anigh to."

"But, (dear me! ) she has a good stock - ?"

"Dummies, sir, all dummies."

"Dummies?"

"Yes, sir; the sugars on the shelves is all dummies - wooden 'uns, done up in paper! The herrin' tub is on'y got a few at top - the rest's all shavins an' waste. - There's plenty o' salt to be sure - but the werry soap-box is all made up."

"And so's my mind!" emphatically exclaimed the deluded Wiggins, slapping the breakfast-table with his clenched fist.

"Jim - Jim - you're a honest lad, and there's half-a-crown for you - "

"Thank'ye for me, sir," said the errand-boy, grinning with delight - "and - and you'll cut the missus, Sir!"

"For ever! - "

"Hooray! I said as how I'd have my rewenge!" cried the lad, and pulling the front of his straight hair, as an apology for a bow, he retreated from the room.

"What an escape!" soliloquized Wiggins - "Should n't I ha' bin properly hampered? that's all. No more insinniwating widows for me! - "

And so ended the Courtship of Mr. Wiggins.


SCENE XXII.

The Itinerant Musician.


A wandering son of Apollo, with a shocking bad hat, encircled by a melancholy piece of rusty crape, and arrayed in garments that had once shone with renovated splendour in that mart of second-hand habiliments 'ycleped Monmouth-street, was affrighting the echoes of a fashionable street by blowing upon an old clarionet, and doing the 'Follow, hark!' of Weber the most palpable injustice.

The red hand of the greasy cook tapped at the kitchen-window below, and she scolded inaudibly - but he still continued to amuse - himself, as regardless of the cook's scolding as of the area-railing against which he leaned, tuning his discordant lay.

His strain indeed appeared endless, and he still persevered in torturing the ambient air with, apparently, as little prospect of blowing himself out as an asthmatic man would possibly have of extinguishing a smoky link with a wheeze - or a hungry cadger without a penny!

The master of the mansion was suffering under a touch of the gout, accompanied by a gnawing tooth-ache! - The horrid noise without made his trembling nerves jangle like the loose strings of an untuned guitar.

A furious tug at the bell brought down the silken rope and brought up an orbicular footman.

"William"

"Yes, sir."

"D that, etc.! and send him to, etc.!"

"Yes, sir."

And away glided the liveried rotundity. -

Appearing at the street-door, the musician took his instrument from his lips, and, approaching the steps, touched his sorry beaver with the side of his left hand.

"There's three-pence for you," said the menial, "and master wishes you'd move on."

"Threepence, indeed!" mumbled the man. "I never moves on under sixpence: d'ye think I doesn't know the walley o' peace and quietness?"

"Fellow!" cried the irate footman, with a pompous air - "Master desires as you'll go on."

"Werry well" - replied the other, touching his hat, while the domestic waddled back, and closed the door, pluming himself upon having settled the musician; but he had no sooner vanished, than the strain was taken up again more uproariously than ever.

Out he rushed again in a twinkling -

"Fellow! I say - man! vot do you mean?"

"Vy, now didn't you tell me to go on?"

"I mean't go off."

"Then vy don't you speak plain hinglish," said the clarionist; "but, I say, lug out t'other browns, or I shall say vot the flute said ven his master said as how he'd play a tune on him."

"Vot vos that?"

"Vy, he'd be blow'd if he would!"

"You're a owdacious fellow."

"Tip!" was the laconic answer, accompanied by an expressive twiddling of the fingers.

"Vell, there then," answered the footman, reluctantly giving him the price of his silence.

"Thank'ye," said the musician, "and in time to come, old fellow, never do nothin' by halves - 'cept it's a calve's head!"


SCENE XXIII.

Oh! lor, here's a norrid thing.'


The Confessions of a Sportsman.

"Vell, for three year, as sure as the Septembers comes, I takes the field, but somehow or another I never takes nothin' else! My gun's a good 'un and no mistake! - Percussions and the best Dartford, and all that too. My haim ain't amiss neither; so there's a fault somewhere, that's certain. The first time as I hentered on the inwigorating and manly sport, I valks my werry legs off, and sees nothin' but crows and that 'ere sort o' small game.

"I vos so aggrawated, that at last I lets fly at 'em in werry spite, jist as they vos a sendin' of their bills into an orse for a dinner.

"Bang! goes the piece; - caw! caw! goes the birds; and I dessay I did for some on 'em, but I don't know, for somehow I vos in sich a preshus hurry to bag my game, that I jumps clean over vun bank, and by goles! plump into a ditch on t'other side, up to my werry neck!

"The mud stuck to me like vax; and findin' it all over vith me, and no chance o' breaking a cover o' this sort, I dawdled about 'till dusk, and vos werry glad to crawl home and jump into bed. I vos so 'put out' that I stayed at home the rest o' that season.

"The second year come, and my hardor vos agin inflamed. 'Cotch me a-shootin' at crows,' says I. - Vell, avay I goes a-vhistling to myself, ven presently I see a solentary bird on the wing; 'a pariwidge, by jingo!' says I - I cocks - presents, and hits it! Hooray! down it tumbles, and afore I could load and prime agin, a whole lot o' 'em comes out from among the trees. 'Here's luck' says I; and jist shouldered my piece, ven I gets sich a vop behind as sent me at full length.

"'Vot's that for?' says I.

"'Vot are you a shootin' at my pigeons for?' says a great hulking, farmering-looking fellow.

"A hexplanation follered; and in course I paid the damage, vich stood me a matter of a suv'rin, for he said he'd take his davy as how it vos a waluable tumbler! - I never sees a 'go' o' rum and vater but vot I thinks on it. This vos a sickener.

"The third year I vos hout agin as fresh as a daisy, ven I made a haim at a sparrer, or a lark, or summit o' that kind - hit it, in course, and vos on the p'int o' going for'ard, ven lo! on turning my wision atop o' the bank afore me, I seed a norrid thing! - a serpent, or a rattle-snake, or somethink a-curling itself up and a hissing like fun!

"I trembled like a haspen-leaf, and-didn't I bolt as fast as my werry legs would carry me, that's all?

"Since that time I may say, with the chap in the stage-play, that my parent has kept myself, his only son, at home, for I see no sport in sich rigs, and perfer a little peace at home to the best gun in the field!" -


THE JOLLY ANGLERS.


On a grassy bank, beside a meandering stream, sat two gentlemen averaging forty years of age. The day was sultry, and, weary of casting their lines without effect, they had stuck their rods in the bank, and sought, in a well-filled basket of provisions and copious libations of bottled porter, to dissipate their disappointment.

"Ain't this jolly? and don't you like a day's fishing, Sam?"

"O! werry much, werry much," emphatically replied his friend, taking his pipe from his mouth.

"Ah! but some people don't know how to go a-fishinq, Sam; they are such fools."

"That's a werry good remark o' your'n," observed Sam; "I daresay as how hangling is werry delightful vhen the fishes vill bite; but vhen they von't, vhy they von't, and vot's the use o' complaining. Hangling is just like writing: for instance - you begins vith, 'I sends you this 'ere line hoping,' and they don't nibble; vell! that's just the same as not hanswering; and, as I takes it, there the correspondence ends!"

"Exactly; I'm quite o' your opinion," replied his companion, tossing off a bumper of Barclay's best; "I say, Sammy, we mustn't empty t'other bottle tho'."

"Vhy not?"

"Cos, do you see, I'm just thinking ve shall vant a little porter to carry us home: for, by Jingo! I don't think as how either of us can toddle - that is respectably!"

"Nonsense! I'd hundertake to walk as straight as a harrow; on'y, I must confess, I should like to have a snooze a'ter my pipe; I'm used to it, d'ye see, and look for it as nat'rally as a babby does."

"Vell, but take t'other glass for a nightcap; for you know, Sammy, if you sleep vithout, you may catch cold: and, vhatever you do, don't snore, or you'll frighten the fish."

"Naughty fish!" replied Sammy, "they know they're naughty too, or else they voud'nt be so afear'd o' the rod! - here's your health;" and he tossed off the proffered bumper.

"Excuse me a-rising to return thanks," replied his friend, grasping Sammy's hand, and looking at him with that fixed and glassy gaze which indicates the happy state of inebriety, termed maudlin; "I know you're a sincere friend, and there ain't nobody as I value more: man and boy have I knowed you; you're unchanged! you're the same!! there ain't no difference!!! and I hope you may live many years to go a-fishing, and I may live to see it, Sammy. Yes, old boy, this here's one of them days that won't be forgotten: it's engraved on my memory deep as the words on a tombstone, 'Here he lies! Here he lies!'" he repeated with a hiccup, and rolled at full length across his dear friend.

Sammy, nearly as much overcome as his friend, lifted up his head, and sticking his hat upon it, knocked it over his eyes, and left him to repose; and, placing his own back against an accommodating tree, he dropped his pipe, and then followed the example of his companion.

After a few hours deep slumber, they awoke. The sun had gone down, and evening had already drawn her star-bespangled mantle over the scene of their festive sport.

Arousing themselves, they sought for their rods, and the remnants of their provisions, but they were all gone.

"My hey! Sammy, if somebody bas'nt taken advantage of us. My watch too has gone, I declare."

"And so's mine!" exclaimed Sammy, feeling his