Tickle. That’s a nice old gentleman, Louis Philippe, isn’t he? Well, my blood as a Briton does bile a little to think that he has, so to speak, gammoned our gracious Sovereign, after all his embracing and kissing her at Yow,[2] and at Windsor Castle, and I don’t know where; and all the time, when he know’d that he meant to jockey us, and marry his son to that precious Infant. I do repeat it, my blood biles——
Nutts. It was shabby, certainly, and like a king. Nevertheless, think as I will upon the matter, my blood’s as mild as mutton broth. To be sure, I do think the little gal had better have married a Spaniard, ’specially as there’s a prince or two in the family. And if there hadn’t been a prince, at all events she ought to have married a countryman.
Slowgoe. What! marry a princess to a husband with no royal blood! Do you know the consequence? What would you think if the eagle was to marry the dove?
Nutts. Why, I certainly shouldn’t think much of the eggs.
Chapter VIII.
Nutts. (Laying down newspaper and taking up razor.) It’s a great blessing it’s all over, and no signs yet of a revolution. Wonderful, isn’t it? Come, Mr Limpy, here’s a razor that ’ud take off the beard of a thistle. (Limpy sits.) Wonderful, isn’t it, what a deal o’ bad taste, as it’s called, Englishmen will stand, and quietly sleep upon, after all? Didn’t folks prophesy a riot at only the notion of putting the Wellington Idol—as I’m bold to call it—upon the top of the arch, and what’s the end of it? There’s Mrs Nutts, my wife, had made her mind up to a revolution, made her mind up to it as if it was a new gown, and no woman was ever more disappointed.
Mrs Nutts. Well, I’m nothin’ to Mrs Biggleswade opposite. She expected nothin’ but the people a-fightin’ with the soldiers; and so moved her chest o’ drawers agin the door, and her feather bed behind the shop windows, to stop the bullets and cannon-balls. Now, whatever my feelings was, bating filling my bottle with hartshorn, I took no other trouble.
Nutts. And there’s one comfort; wherever there’s a woman, hartshorn’s sure not to be wasted.