The reader is courteously introduced into a bone and bottle shop, and made acquainted with Peter Veriquear and the family of the Veriquears. A night adventure.
IN a bye-lane leading out of Hare Street, which, as my readers must be informed, is situated about the middle of the parish of Bethnal Green, there resided a certain tradesman, one Peter Veriquear by name; into whose service, as a man of all work, our hero, Mr. Clink, may now be supposed to have entered. By the recommendation, vote, and interest of Mistress Popple, who had some acquaintance with the Veriquears, it was that he obtained this eligible situation; a situation which found him a sort of endless employment of one kind or other, day and night, at the rate of six shillings per week, bed and board included.
When Colin first applied about the place, Mr. Veriquear replied, “If you want a situation, young man, that is your business, and not mine. If I have a place to dispose of, I have; and if I hav'n't, why of course I hav'n't. That is my business, and not yours.”
Colin hinted something about what Mrs. Popple had said.
“Well!” exclaimed Veriquear, “if Mrs. Popple told you so, she did. That is Mrs. Popple's business, and neither yours nor mine.”
“Then I am mistaken, sir?”
“I did not say you were mistaken. But, if you think you are, that is your own business, and not mine.”
“Then what, sir,” asked Colin, somewhat puzzled, “am I to understand?”
“Why,” replied Veriquear, “I shall say the same to you as I do to all young men,—understand your own business, if you have any, and, if you hav'n't, understand how to get one,—that is the next best thing.”
“And that,” rejoined our hero, “is exactly what I am desirous of doing.”