‘Come, Tommy,’ said the little man.
‘I an’t a talker,’ replied the other. ‘Tell him so. What should I go and talk for?’
‘Don’t you see the gentleman’s got a bottle and glass up there?’ returned the little man.
‘And couldn’t you have said so at first?’ retorted the other with sudden alacrity. ‘Now, what are you waiting for? Are you going to keep the gentleman expecting us all day? haven’t you no manners?’
With this remonstrance, the melancholy man, who was no other than Mr Thomas Codlin, pushed past his friend and brother in the craft, Mr Harris, otherwise Short or Trotters, and hurried before him to the single gentleman’s apartment.
‘Now, my men,’ said the single gentleman; ‘you have done very well. What will you take? Tell that little man behind, to shut the door.’
‘Shut the door, can’t you?’ said Mr Codlin, turning gruffly to his friend. ‘You might have knowed that the gentleman wanted the door shut, without being told, I think.’
Mr Short obeyed, observing under his breath that his friend seemed unusually ‘cranky,’ and expressing a hope that there was no dairy in the neighbourhood, or his temper would certainly spoil its contents.
The gentleman pointed to a couple of chairs, and intimated by an emphatic nod of his head that he expected them to be seated. Messrs Codlin and Short, after looking at each other with considerable doubt and indecision, at length sat down—each on the extreme edge of the chair pointed out to him—and held their hats very tight, while the single gentleman filled a couple of glasses from a bottle on the table beside him, and presented them in due form.
