“Well, my love,” said the stock-jobber, “I believe I must be off. Here Tom,” Tom (Mr. de Warens had just entered the room with some more hot water, to weaken still further “the poor remains of what was once”—the tea!), “Tom, just run out and stop the coach; it will be by in five minutes.”
“Have not I prayed and besought you, many and many a time, Mr. Copperas,” said the lady, rebukingly, “not to call De Warens by his Christian name? Don’t you know that all people in genteel life, who only keep one servant, invariably call him by his surname, as if he were the butler, you know?”
“Now, that is too good, my love,” said Copperas. “I will call poor Tom by any surname you please, but I really can’t pass him off for a butler! Ha—ha—ha—you must excuse me there, my love!”
“And pray, why not, Mr. Copperas? I have known many a butler bungle more at a cork than he does; and pray tell me who did you ever see wait better at dinner?”
“He wait at dinner, my love! it is not he who waits.”
“Who then, Mr. Copperas?”
“Why we, my love; it’s we who wait for dinner; but that’s the cook’s fault, not his.”
“Pshaw! Mr. Copperas; Adolphus, my love, sit upright, darling.”
Here De Warens cried from the bottom of the stairs,—“Measter, the coach be coming up.”
“There won’t be room for it to turn then,” said the facetious Mr. Copperas, looking round the apartment as if he took the words literally.