‘Ashamed of themselves!’ said Mrs. Raddle. ‘Why don’t you go down and knock ‘em every one downstairs? You would if you was a man.’
I should if I was a dozen men, my dear,’ replied Mr. Raddle pacifically, ‘but they have the advantage of me in numbers, my dear.’
‘Ugh, you coward!’ replied Mrs. Raddle, with supreme contempt. ‘Do you mean to turn them wretches out, or not, Mr. Sawyer?’
‘They’re going, Mrs. Raddle, they’re going,’ said the miserable Bob. ‘I am afraid you’d better go,’ said Mr. Bob Sawyer to his friends. ‘I thought you were making too much noise.’
‘It’s a very unfortunate thing,’ said the prim man. ‘Just as we were getting so comfortable too!’ The prim man was just beginning to have a dawning recollection of the story he had forgotten.
‘It’s hardly to be borne,’ said the prim man, looking round. ‘Hardly to be borne, is it?’
‘Not to be endured,’ replied Jack Hopkins; ‘let’s have the other verse, Bob. Come, here goes!’
‘No, no, Jack, don’t,’ interposed Bob Sawyer; ‘it’s a capital song, but I am afraid we had better not have the other verse. They are very violent people, the people of the house.’
‘Shall I step upstairs, and pitch into the landlord?’ inquired Hopkins, ‘or keep on ringing the bell, or go and groan on the staircase? You may command me, Bob.’
‘I am very much indebted to you for your friendship and good-nature, Hopkins,’ said the wretched Mr. Bob Sawyer, ‘but I think the best plan to avoid any further dispute is for us to break up at once.’