“At your service,” said Peter, with the indifference of a man well to do, and not ambitious of halfpence.
“Come, then, quick—budge,” said the Traveller, tapping him on the back: “bring more glasses—another jug of the October; and any thing or every thing your larder is able to produce—d’ye hear?”
Peter, by no means pleased with the briskness of this address, eyed the dusty and way-worn pedestrian from head to foot; then, looking over his shoulder towards the door, he said, as he ensconced himself yet more firmly on his seat—
“There’s my wife by the door, friend; go, tell her what you want.”
“Do you know,” said the Traveller, in a slow and measured accent—“Do you know, master Shrivel-face, that I have more than half a mind to break your head for impertinence. You a landlord!—you keep an inn, indeed! Come, Sir, make off, or—”
“Corporal!—Corporal!” cried Peter, retreating hastily from his seat as the brawny Traveller approached menacingly towards him—“You won’t see the peace broken. Have a care, friend—have a care I’m clerk to the parish—clerk to the parish, Sir—and I’ll indict you for sacrilege.”
The wooden features of Bunting relaxed into a sort of grin at the alarm of his friend. He puffed away, without making any reply; meanwhile the Traveller, taking advantage of Peter’s hasty abandonment of his cathedrarian accommodation, seized the vacant chair, and drawing it yet closer to the table, flung himself upon it, and placing his hat on the table, wiped his brows with the air of a man about to make himself thoroughly at home.
Peter Dealtry was assuredly a personage of peaceable disposition; but then he had the proper pride of a host and a clerk. His feeling were exceedingly wounded at this cavalier treatment—before the very eyes of his wife too—what an example! He thrust his hands deep into his breeches pockets, and strutting with a ferocious swagger towards the Traveller, he said:—
“Harkye, sirrah! This is not the way folks are treated in this country: and I’d have you to know, that I’m a man what has a brother a constable.”
“Well, Sir!”