“Isn't there a back of a duck and two slices of cold bacon?” asked the lady, in the tone of a cross-examining barrister.
“I poisoned the bacon for the rats, Miss; and for the duck—”
“Let me strangle him with my own hands,” shouted the man; “let me tear him up into merrythoughts. Look here, sirrah,” said he, in a voice like John Kemble's; “there may be nothing which man eats within these walls; there may not be wherewithal to regale a sickly fly,—no, not enough for one poor spider to lunch upon; but if you ever dare to reply to me, save in Oriental phrase, I 'll throw you in a sack, call my mutes, and hurl you into the Bosphorus.”
“Where, sir?”
“The Dodder, you son of a burned father! My hookah.”
“My slippers,” repeated the lady.
“My lute, and the sherbet,” added the gentleman.
By the stir in the chamber, these arrangements, or something equivalent to them, seemed to have taken place; when again I heard,—“Dance a lively measure, Saladin; my soul is heavy.”
Here a most vile tinkling of a guitar was heard, to which, by the sounds of the feet, I could perceive Saladin was moving in a species of dance.
“Let the child go to bed, and don't be making a fool of yourself,” said the lady, in a voice of bursting passion.