The String of Pearls (1850), p. 68

then, I shall expect to see you, and, above all, be sure you let me know if that canting parson, Lupin, comes any more to your house."
"I will, Ben."
"Ah, do; and I'll give him another lesson if he should, and I tell you how I'll do it. I'll get a free admission to the wild beastesses in the Tower, and when he comes to see 'em, for them 'ere sort of fellows always goes everywhere they can go for nothing, I'll just manage to pop him into a cage along of some of the most cantankerous creatures as we have."
"But would not that be dangerous?"
"Oh dear no! we has a laughing hysena as would frighten him out of his wits; but I don't think as he'd bite him much, do you know. He's as playful as a kitten, and very fond of standing on his head."
"Well, then, Ben, I have, of course, no objection, although I do think that the lesson you have already given to the reverend gentleman will and ought to be fully sufficient for all purposes, and I don't expect we shall see him again."
"But how does Mrs. O. behave to you?" asked Ben,
"Well, Ben, I don't think there's much difference; sometimes she's a little civil, and sometimes she ain't; it's just as she takes it into her head."
"Ah! that all comes of marrying."
"I have often wondered, though, Ben, that you never married.''
Ben gave a chuckle as he replied—
"Have you though, really? Well, Cousin Oakley, I don't mind telling; you, but the real fact is, once I was very near being served out in that sort of way."
"Indeed!"
"Yes. I'll tell you how it was; there was a girl called Angelina Day, and a nice-looking enough creature she was as you'd wish to see, and didn't seem as if she'd got any claws at all; leastways she kept them in, like a cat at meal times."
"Upon my word, Ben, you have a great knowledge of the world."
"I believe you, I have! Haven't I been brought up among the wild beasts in the Tower all my life? That's the place to get a knowledge of the world in, my boy. I ought to know a thing or two, and in course I does."
"Well, but how was it, Ben, that you did not marry this Angelina you speak of?''
"I'll tell you; she thought she had me as safe as a hare in a trap, and she was as amiable as a lump of cotton. You'd have thought, to look at her, that she did nothing but smile; and, to hear her, that she said nothing but nice, mild, pleasant things, and I really began to think as I had found out the proper sort of animal."
"But you were mistaken?"
"I believe you, I was. One day I'd been there to see her, I mean, at her father's house, and she'd been as amiable as she could be; I got up to go away, with a determination that the next time I got there I would ask her to say yes and when I had got a little way out of the garden of the house where they lived.—it was out of town some distance—I found I had left my little walking-cane behind me, so I goes back to get it, and when I got into the garden I heard, a voice."
"Whose voice?"
"Why Angelina's, to be sure; she was speaking to a poor little dab of a servant they had; and oh, my eye! how she did rap out, to be sure! Such a speech as I never heard in all my life. She went on a matter of ten minutes without stopping, and every other word was some ill name or another; and her voice—oh gracious! it was like a bundle of wire all of a tangle—it was."
"And what did you do, then, upon making such a discovery as that in so very odd and unexpected a manner?"
"Do! What do you suppose I did?"
"I really cannot say, as you are rather an eccentric fellow."
"Well then, I'll tell you. I went up to the house, and just popped in my head