Slowgoe. Impossible! they wouldn’t dare to do it.
Tickle. Why not? Must be plenty o’ room; for they do say fourteen gentlemen took a sociable glass in the Duke’s inside.
Slowgoe. Pooh! What for?
Nosebag. I s’pose to show, as I once heard Othello say, that the Duke “had stomach for ’em all.”
Slowgoe. Never was—never will be—so great a man. Proceed. The dray-horses—noble animals!—went on——
Cannikin. And when they turned Park Lane—and how they did turn! as if they know’d the whole business quite as well as we Christians—and got into Pickydilly, and the statue—as I thought to myself—begun to smile, tho’ p’r’aps it was only the sun as broke out upon it—as the Dook seemed to know he was gettin’ near home—then didn’t the people shout agin, and didn’t the band blow their brass trumpets, and didn’t the Dook’s brass feathers rattle agin? Oh, didn’t they!
Slowgoe. Quite affecting to hear of it. And I’m told the Duke’s balcony was full o’ nobility.
Tickle. Bless you! full as the Red Book. There was the Queen-Dowager, and a good many o’ the rest o’ the Royal Family.
Nutts. (In a low voice, aside.) Worshipping the graven image.
Tickle. But, bless your heart! you should ha’ seen Sir Frederick Trench and the Duke o’ Rutland upon Mr Wyatt’s stand. Didn’t they laugh at the statue—and rub their hands—and wink at one another—and put their tongues in their cheeks, as much as to say to the mountain o’ brass afore ’em, “Well, it’s all right; we’ve got you so far, and we’ll have you up: and when you’re well up, there you’ll stand; for we know a ’lightened people won’t trouble their heads a pin about the matter to pull you down agin.” And that’s the way they sarve the British Public!