ANECDOTE OF A MAGPIE.
For the Table Book.
A cobbler, who lived on indifferent terms with his wife in Kingsmead-street, Bath, somewhat like Nell and Jobson, kept a magpie, that learned his favourite ejaculatory exclamation—“What the plague art (h)at?” Whoever came to his shop, where the bulk of his business was carried on, the magpie was sure to use this exclamation; but the bird was matched by the ghostly, bodily, and tall person of “Hats to dress!” a well-known street perambulator and hat improver, who, with that cry, daily passed the temple of Crispin. The magpie aspirating at with h, the crier of “Hats to dress!” considered it a personal insult, and after long endurance, one morning put the bird into his bag, and walked away with his living plague. When he reached home, “poor mag!” was daintily fed, and became a favourite with the dresser’s wife. It chanced, however, that the cobbler, who supplied the sole understanding of “Hats to dress!” waited on him to be rebeavered for his own understanding. The magpie, hearing his old master’s voice, cried out, “What the plague art (h)at?” “Ha, ha, ha,” said the astonished and delighted cobbler, “come to fetch thee home, thou ’scapegrace.” The hatter and the cobbler drank their explanation over a quart of ale; and with a new, old, hat on his head, the latter trudged through Stall-street, with his magpie in his apron, crying, “What the plague art (h)at?”
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