Nutts. I’m not intimate with his Royal Highness, but the paper always says he goes home to the castle to luncheon. And then to praise a gen’lewoman for smilin’! I s’pose they think that a compliment, as if it warn’t at all easy for a queen to look pleasant. Again, if it’s sich a recommendation to state affairs to be in the “fields of sport,” I wonder they don’t make a foxhound a prime minister!
Slowgoe. The Duke of Richmond says (reads), “I never had a fancy to ride upon the whirlwind and direct the storm.”
Nutts. So far a very sensible old gentleman. A whirlwind isn’t made for every man’s hobby.
Slowgoe. And doesn’t Mr Disreally give it to Manchester a little? Makes it a nothin’. Puts, as I may say, his crush hat over all the tall chimneys, and kivers ’em quite. He says, “Magna Charta was not procured by Manchester; Manchester was not known then!”
Nutts. And is that really Benjamin? Well! And if only two years ago, at a Manchester sworry, if he didn’t stand up in the ’Theneum, and butter the youths of Manchester as if they was so many muffins! And he talked to ’em too—I recollect it well—as familiarly about Jacob’s ladder as if it had been placed in the Minories, and he’d been used to run right up it and slide down it from a boy.
Nightflit. Well, this is good news, isn’t it? Here’s Mr Jones has brought up a report to the Common Council of London; and we are to have a house, as he says—“the heart of St Giles’”—built for poor people.
Nutts. The heart of St Giles’! Well, it’s the way to put a heart into it, anyhow.
Slowgoe. What, goin’ to do away with all the cellars? Well, all I hope is this, I hope they’re not goin’ too fast.
Nightflit. How can they go too fast? when the report says (reads), “They propose to build a house, giving clean and wholesome lodging to one hundred single labourers, at a rent not greater than they are now forced to pay for accommodation in houses filled with dirt, vermin, unwholesome air, bad society, and many other evil circumstances.” Can’t get rid of dirt and varmint too soon, can we?
Slowgoe. I won’t be sure of that; when people have been born and reared among ’em, dirt and varmin are as second nature.