“Is it for the kettle, ma’am?”
“If you will be so very kind,” lisped the hostess.
“Well, then, upon my conscience, you are impudent,” said Cudmore, with his face crimsoned to the ears, and his eyes flashing fire.
“Why, Mr. Cudmore,” began the lady, “why, really, this is so strange. Why sir, what can you mean?”
“Just that,” said the imperturbable jib, who now that his courage was up, dared every thing.
“But sir, you must surely have misunderstood me. I only asked for the kettle, Mr. Cudmore.”
“The devil a more,” said Cud, with a sneer.
“Well, then, of course”—
“Well, then, I’ll tell you, of course,” said he, repeating her words; “the sorrow taste of the kettle, I’ll give you. Call you own skip—Blue Pether there—damn me, if I’ll be your skip any longer.”
For the uninitiated I have only to add, that “skip” is the Trinity College appellation for servant, which was therefore employed by Mr. Cudmore, on this occasion, as expressing more contemptuously his sense of the degradation of the office attempted to be put upon him. Having already informed my reader on some particulars of the company, I leave him to suppose how Mr. Cudmore’s speech was received. Whist itself was at an end for that evening, and nothing but laughter, long, loud, and reiterated, burst from every corner of the room for hours after.