Nutts. Oh! if she says it’s red, I know it isn’t hers. Now the lady as that belongs to calls it auburn. Not that I should like to walk with her into a powder-magazine with her wearing it.
Girl. And please, my mother says she hopes the curls are a little tighter than——
Nutts. Tighter! You tell that blessed widow, your mother, that they’re just what she wants—tight enough to hold a second husband. I know the man; and though I’ve no grudge agin him, I curled ’em a-purpose.
Limpy. Why, isn’t that Mrs Trodsam’s little girl? And the woman going to be married agin?
Nutts. In course. When her husband died she vowed she’d go into weeds and her own grey hairs for life. That’s barely a twelvemonth ago; and now the weeds are gone, and she wears marigolds in her cap, to catch the milkman. I don’t know who’d have a widder! Seven times have I curled that front in three weeks.
Slowgoe. (With newspaper.) Well, this is a pretty bus’ness, this Religious ’Pinions Bill. Going to make friends with the Pope! Going to let him send his bulls into the country, as many as he likes. Well, I don’t know; but I should think the British Lion—if he’s got a war life in him—won’t stand that.
Tickle. That’s nothin’. They say we’re goin’ to send a ’bassador to Rome, and Sir Randrews Agnew’s to be ’pinted to the post. Oh, isn’t the Pope a—a-gammin’ us! He’s a-goin’ to buy down railroads right and left. Now what do you think the rails are for?
Slowgoe. Why, for steam-ingines.
Tickle. Not a bit on it. I know somebody as knows Colonel Sibthorpe’s footman as knows all about it. The Pope intends to get up a fancy fair in Rome for the conversion of the Jews. Well, this will fill Rome with English dowagers, taking all their pincushions ready-made with them. And when they get there, the rails (they’re made o’ purpose) will be taken up and turned into gridirons; and won’t the Papishes roast us agin, as they did in Smithfield?
Slowgoe. No doubt on it. This comes of giving up good old names. I always thought what would come of it when we left off calling the Pope the Scarlet——