Tickle. Yes. Parson M’Neile—he isn’t yet a bishop, I hear——
Nutts. Why, no; but as they say there’s going to be a bishop made for Manchester, and as he’s at Liverpool, so very near the spot, he keeps himself prepared for the best. They do say he sleeps with his carpet-bag and shovel-hat by his bedside, all in readiness for an early train.
Tickle. A very provident parson. Well, they say he preached another sermon last Sunday about the Prince and his doings. In fact, it is reported that he intends to follow up his Royal Highness through the Court Circular. Last Sunday he compared him to Noah.
Nutts. As how?
Tickle. Why, because his Royal Highness was afloat in the royal yacht. Bless you! he showed how the Prince was Noah, and how the Victoria and Albert was nothing more than the ark, holding the hopes of the world; and how the precious children were Ham, Shem, and Japheth, and how the ark held two of every living thing.
Tickle. Well, I can’t say about that; but if Parson M’Neile told men all the beasts in the ark was, St Jude’s could answer for one of the “creeping things.”
Chapter V.
Tickle. (With newspaper.) Well, it’s a shocking thing, isn’t it, when we read of babbies, left by things as call themselves their mothers, on highways and door-steps, and in all sort of places, exposed, I b’lieve they call it, to the elements and the severity of the season. It’s a little bad o’ such parents, isn’t it, Mr Nutts?