The String of Pearls (1850), p. [66]

shovel and a broom, there is a crumb a laying there, and then says I—'Damn you all,' says I, 'bring a scavenger's cart, and a half-dozen birch brooms, there's a cinder just fell out of the fire.' Then in course they gets chocked, and looks as blue as possible, and arter that, when they see as I aint agoing, one of them says 'Mr. Benjamin Blumergutts, would you like to take a glass of wine?' 'I should think so,' says I. 'Then he says, says he, 'which would you prefer, red or white?' says he. 'White,' says I, 'while you are screwing up your courage to pull out the red,' so out they pull it; and as soon as I got hold of the bootle, I knocked the neck of it off over the top bar of the fire-place, and then drank it all up. 'Now, damn ye,' says I, 'you thinks all this is mighty genteel and fine, but I don't, and consider you to be the blessedest set of humbugs ever I set my eyes on; and, if ever you catch me here again, I'll be genteel too, and I can't say more than that. Go to the devil, all of ye.' So out I went, only I met with a little accident in the hall, for they had got a sort of lamp hanging there, and somehow or 'nother, my head went bang into it, and I carried it out round my neck; but when I did get out I took it off, and shied it slap in at the parlour window. You never heard such a smash in all your life. I dare say they all fainted away for about a week, the blessed humbugs."
"Well, I should not wonder," said Mr. Oakley, "I never go near them, because I don't like their foolish pomposity and pride, which, upon very slender resources, tries to ape what it don't at all understand; but here is Mrs. Oakley with the sausages, and I hope you will make yourself comfortable, Ben."
"Comfortable! I believe ye, I rather shall. I means it, and no mistake."
"I have brought three pounds," said Mrs. Oakley, "and told the man to call in a quarter of an hour, in case there is any more wanted."
"The devil you have; and the bacon, Mrs. Oakley, the bacon!"
"I could not get any—the man had nothing but hams."
"Lor', ma'am, I'd put up with a ham cut thick, and never nave said a word about it. I am a angel of a temper, and if you did but know it. Halloa, look, is that the fellow with the half-and half?"
"Yes. here it is—a pot."
"A what?"
"A pot, to be sure."
"Well, I never ; you are getting genteel, Mrs. Oakley. Then give us a hold of it."
Ben took the pot, and emptied it at a draught, and then he gave a tap at the bottom of it with his knuckles, to signify that he had accomplished that feat, and then he said, "I tells you what, ma'am, if you takes me for a baby, it's a great mistake, and any one would think you did, to see you offering me a pot merely; it's an insult, ma'am."
"Fiddle-de-dee,'' said Mrs. Oakley; "it's a much greater insult to drink it all up, and give nobody a drop."
"Is it? I wants to know how you are to stop it, ma'am, when you gets it to your mouth? that's what I axes you—how are you to stop it, ma'am? You didn't want me to spew it back again, did you, eh, ma'am?"
"You vile, low wretch!"
"Come, come, my dear," said Mr. Oakley, "you know our cousin. Ben don't live among the most refined society, and so you ought to be able to look over a little of—of—his—I may say, I am sure, without offence, roughness now and then;—come, come, there is no harm done, I'm sure. Forget and forgive say I. That's my maxim, and has always been, and will always be."
"Well," said the beef-eater, "it's a good one to get through the world with, and so there's an end of it. I forgives you, Mother Oakley."
"You forgive—"
"Yes, to be sure. Though I am only a beef-eater, I suppose as I may forgive people for all that—eh, Cousin Oakley?"
"Oh, of course, Ben, of course. Come, come, wife, you know as well as I that