"There, father," said she, "look at that! just listen to him! You wouldn't believe me before. What's a young woman to look for with a man as can go on like that?—cursing and swearing before one's face,—quite awful!"
"He was aggravated, Maryanne," said the old man.
"Yes, and he'll always be being aggravated. If he thinks as I ain't going to speak civil of them as has always spoke civil to me, he's in the wrong of it. William Brisket never went about cursing at me in that way."
"I didn't curse at you, Maryanne."
"If William Brisket had anything to say of a rival, he said it out honest. 'Maryanne,' said he to me once, 'if that young man comes after you any more, I'll polish his head off his shoulders.' Now, that was speaking manly; and, if you could behave like that, you'd get yourself respected. But as for them rampagious Billingsgate ways before a lady, I for one haven't been used to it, and I won't put up with it!" And so she bounced out of the room.
"You shouldn't have swore at her, George," said Mr. Brown.
"Swear at her!" said Robinson, putting his hand up to his head, as though he found it almost impossible to collect his scattered thoughts. "But it doesn't matter. The world may swear at her for me now; and the world will swear at her!" So saying, he left the house, went hastily down Snow Hill, and again walked moodily on the bridge of Blackfriars. "'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished," said he: "—devoutly!—devoutly! And when they take me up,—up to her, would it be loving, or would it be loathing?—A nasty, cold, moist, unpleasant body!" he went on. "Ah me! it would be loathing! He hadn't a father; he hadn't a mother; he hadn't a sister; he hadn't a brother;—but he had a dearer one still, and a nearer one yet, than all other.—'To be or not to be; that is the question.'—He must in ground unsanctified be lodged, till the last trumpet! Ah, there's the rub! But for that, who would these fardels bear?" Then he made up his mind that the fardels must still be borne, and again went home to his lodgings.
This had occurred some little time before the opening of the house, and on the next morning George Robinson was at his work as hard,—ay, harder—than ever. He had pledged himself to the firm, and was aware that it would ill become him to allow private sorrows to interfere with public duties. On that morrow he was more enterprising than ever, and it was then that he originated the idea of the four men in armour, and of Fame with her classical horn and gilded car.
"She'll come round again, George," said Mr. Brown, "and then take her at the hop."
"She'll hop no more for me," said George Robinson, sternly. But on this matter he was weak as water, and this woman was able to turn him round her little finger.