Slowgoe. Ha! it’s no business of mine, of course—I’ll take the paper after you, Mr Nosebag, just while I stay—no business; but I know’d what it would come to when they disgraced pheasants down to poultry, and sold hares with low rabbits.
Tickle. Nothin’s surprising now; I shouldn’t wonder to see the British Lion sold for bull-beef, and the Unicorn himself turned into ewe-mutton. Wonder what Mr Grantley Berkeley would say, if he heard that a penny barber dined off hare and currant-jelly!
Slowgoe. Why, he’d write another letter to the Morning Post, of course. Great man Mr Berkeley! We’ve got a Keeper of the Woods and Forests, why shouldn’t we have a Government officer, a Keeper of the Hares and Pheasants?
Peabody. With a seat in the Cabinet?
Slowgoe. And a right to raise a body of men, to be called “Punchers on the Head”—punching everybody as ever looked at anything above a weasel or a sparrow? But I always said it: once sell game—once let the lower orders taste it, and, like tigers that once eat men, they’re too conceited to eat anything under it.
Nosebag. Talking about Grantley Berkeley—here’s a letter from him, that says he’s had warning from Lord Fitzhardinge not to think any more of his seat for the “Western Division of the County of Gloucester”!
Nutts. I see. An order to take off his Lordship’s livery and look out for another place. That’s how they discharge valets, and footmen, and——
Tickle. Independent members of Parliament!
Slowgoe. I can’t stop a minute; but this is interesting: just one look at the paper. (Takes it.) Ha! I see: a very long letter.
Tickle. Yes; by what I can make out, it goes more for length than depth.