“Nothing exciseable for me,” said Devilsdust.
“Well it ayn’t exactly the right ticket, Mrs Trotman, I believe,” said Mick, bowing gallantly to the lady; “but ‘pon my soul I am so thirsty, that I’ll take Chaffing Jack at his word;” and so saying Mick and Devilsdust ensconced themselves in the bar, while good-hearted Mrs Carey, sipped her glass of gin and water, which she frequently protested was a pool of Bethesda.
“Well Jack,” said Devilsdust, “I suppose you have heard the news?”
“If it be anything that has happened at Mowbray, especially in this quarter, I should think I had. Times must be very bad indeed that some one does not drop in to tell me anything that has happened and to ask my advice.”
“It’s nothing to do with Mowbray.”
“Thank you kindly, Mrs Trotman,” said Mick, “and here’s your very good health.”
“Then I am in the dark,” said Chaffing Jack, replying to the previous observation of Devilsdust, “for I never see a newspaper now except a week old, and that lent by a friend, I who used to take my Sun regular, to say nothing of the Dispatch, and Bell’s Life. Times is changed, Mr Radley.”
“You speak like a book, Mr Trotman,” said Mick, “and here’s your very good health. But as for newspapers, I’m all in the dark myself, for the Literary and Scientific is shut up, and no subscribers left, except the honorary ones, and not a journal to be had except the Moral World and that’s gratis.”
“As bad as the Temple,” said Chaffing Jack, “it’s all up with the institutions of the country. And what then is the news?”
“Labour is triumphant in Lancashire,” said Devilsdust with bitter solemnity.