‘Thank’ee, sir,’ replied Mr. Walker, leaving his box, and advancing to the other to accept the proffered glass. ‘Here’s your health, sir, and your good ’ooman’s here. Gentlemen all—yours, and better luck still. Well, Mr. Willis,’ continued the facetious prisoner, addressing the young man with the cigar, ‘you seem rather down to-day—floored, as one may say. What’s the matter, sir? Never say die, you know.’
‘Oh! I’m all right,’ replied the smoker. ‘I shall be bailed out to-morrow.’
‘Shall you, though?’ inquired the other. ‘Damme, I wish I could say the same. I am as regularly over head and ears as the Royal George, and stand about as much chance of being bailed out. Ha! ha! ha!’
‘Why,’ said the young man, stopping short, and speaking in a very loud key, ‘look at me. What d’ye think I’ve stopped here two days for?’
‘’Cause you couldn’t get out, I suppose,’ interrupted Mr. Walker, winking to the company. ‘Not that you’re exactly obliged to stop here, only you can’t help it. No compulsion, you know, only you must—eh?’
‘A’n’t he a rum un?’ inquired the delighted individual, who had offered the gin-and-water, of his wife.
‘Oh, he just is!’ replied the lady, who was quite overcome by these flashes of imagination.
‘Why, my case,’ frowned the victim, throwing the end of his cigar into the fire, and illustrating his argument by knocking the bottom of the pot on the table, at intervals,—‘my case is a very singular one. My father’s a man of large property, and I am his son.’
‘That’s a very strange circumstance!’ interrupted the jocose Mr. Walker, en passant.
‘—I am his son, and have received a liberal education. I don’t owe no man nothing—not the value of a farthing, but I was induced, you see, to put my name to some bills for a friend—bills to a large amount, I may say a very large amount, for which I didn’t receive no consideration. What’s the consequence?’