Slowgoe. Mr Nutts! You don’t dare to insinuate that free-born Britons, men that never stoop to nothin’, should have cast themselves——
Nutts. What?—right down under the wheels of the Wellington Idol? Why, no; not quite. That would ha’ been a little too serious. But when we hear some folks talk as they do about the statue, and about the Duke, as if he was the first man born, and would certainly be the last—when these folks are for settin’ up brass and bronze to the glory of gunpowder, and never heeding the glory of the goose-quill, or——
Nosebag. Ha! there’s Shakespeare, and——
Slowgoe. Now, none of your low company, Mr Nosebag: I won’t have it. Go on, Mr Nutts; you was speaking of the admirers of the Duke.
Nutts. No, I warn’t. I was speaking of the ’dolators. I like admiration; but I hate ’dolatry of any man. I can hear the word Waterloo, and not go down upon my knees to it. Well, I shouldn’t ha’ liked these folks to ha’ gone under the wheels, theirselves; but since last Tuesday was Michaelmas-day, a good many on ’em might ha’ found very proper proxies.
Nosebag. They might have drew a flock of the birds under, to be sure.
Nutts. In course. And it would have been so in keeping, wouldn’t it? Crushing the goose-quills under the iron wheels of war! Now I think of it, that’s not a bad notion. Eh?
Slowgoe. (Jumping up.) Good-morning, Mr Nutts. Never again do I enter your shop. A man who can speak thus of a statue of all we love, a man who can talk in such an infidel way of Waterloo, and—but, good-morning!—I think I’ve had a lucky escape, seeing how often I’ve been shaved by an atheist. (Exit.)
Nosebag. See what it is, Nutts, to have principles. A customer gone for life!
Nutts. Not a bit on it. He only wanted to go off, like a squib, with a bang—and he thinks he’s done it. Didn’t like the touch of the geese; thought it a little too hard upon himself, perhaps. Now, what do you say to my notion, Mr Peabody? You ought to know—you’ve been a schoolmaster.