“What!” said Clutterbuck, innocently, and evidently not seeing the irony of his own question; “What! have the efts broken two dozen bottles in a week? Of an exceeding surety, it is strange that a little creature of the lizard species should be so destructive—perchance they have an antipathy to the vinous smell; I will confer with my learned friend, Dr. Dissectall, touching their strength and habits. Bring up some of the port, then, good Dixon.”
“Yes, Sir. All the corn is out; I had none for the gentleman’s horse.”
“Why, Dixon, my memory fails me strangely, or I paid you the sum of four pounds odd shillings for corn on Friday last.”
“Yes, Sir: but your cow and the chickens eat so much, and then blind Dobbin has four feeds a day, and Farmer Johnson always puts his horse in our stable, and Mrs. Clutterbuck and the ladies fed the jackass the other day in the hired donkeychaise; besides, the rats and mice are always at it.”
“It is a marvel unto me,” answered Clutterbuck, “how detrimental the vermin race are; they seem to have noted my poor possessions as their especial prey; remind me that I write to Dr. Dissectall to-morrow, good Dixon.”
“Yes, Sir, and now I think of it—” but here Mr. Dixon was cut short in his items, by the entrance of a third person, who proved to be Mrs. Clutterbuck.
“What, not dressed yet, Mr. Clutterbuck; what a dawdler you are!—and do look—was ever woman so used? you have wiped your razor upon my nightcap—you dirty, slovenly—”
“I crave you many pardons; I own my error!” said Clutterbuck, in a nervous tone of interruption.
“Error, indeed!” cried Mrs. Clutterbuck, in a sharp, overstretched, querulous falsetto, suited to the occasion: “but this is always the case—I am sure, my poor temper is tried to the utmost—and Lord help thee, idiot! you have thrust those spindle legs of yours into your coat-sleeves instead of your breeches!”
“Of a truth, good wife, your eyes are more discerning than mine; and my legs, which are, as you say, somewhat thin, have indued themselves in what appertaineth not unto them; but for all that, Dorothea, I am not deserving of the epithet of idiot, with which you have been pleased to favour me; although my humble faculties are indeed of no eminent or surpassing order—”