The advantage, one would have thought, lay with the untainted clergyman.
“Herthquake, indeed!” exclaimed Mrs. Puddephatt, with withering contempt. “And grace took hout of it? No, sir; not more than what Elijah looked to find in his’n, and was deceived in the Almighty. A fine show convert we’ve got in our Mr. Rampick, haven’t we? Ho, yes! Tee-hee! And I ’opes as he makes it pay, sinst the loss of his liveli’ood by the herthquake.”
The amount of scorn she got each time into the word was simply blasting.
“He lost——” began my uncle, surprised.
“Ah! what would he lose, now?” interrupted the lady, acridly humorous. “That’s just hit, sir. Talked of the wicked smugglers to Master Bowen here, didn’t he? Well, supposin’ he were hisself the most howtdacious of the lot? I don’t say he was, you know. I wouldn’t so commit myself. I merely states as a curious fact that this Rampick, as was formerly as warm and dangerous a man as the best in the place, is, sinst the herthquake, become a loafer, without any visible means of substance. Ho, yes! A pretty convert, I don’t think!”
“You believe him to be at heart a smuggler still?” said my uncle. “Now, now, Mrs. Puddephatt!”
“Sir,” she answered, with dignity, “I thank you for the himplication; but whatever my apperient greenness, I wasn’t born yesterday. We may have our faults in London, but to be Suffolk paunches isn’t among them. Once a smuggler, sir, is halways a smuggler.”
“Indeed?” said Uncle Jenico, much abashed.
“Yes, sir,” said Mrs. Puddephatt; “just as to be born a gipsy is to laugh at the rates. A ’ottentot, sir, isn’t ashamed of his own nekkedness, nor a smuggler of his smugness. Reform, hindeed!”
“Well, well,” said Uncle Jenico. “But what makes you suppose it wasn’t an earthquake?”