'Gin,' says another.
'Anniseed-water,' says another. And so they fell to and drank.
'I am happy that I ever came to this City of Lunnun; for my fortune is made,' says Brandy.
'If my father had lived, I would be brought up to good iddication,' says Gin.
'If my mother had lived, I would be brought up at a boarding-school,' says Anniseed-water.
'Why, curse you,' says Gin, 'what was your mother but an old apple-woman?'
'And curse you,' says Anniseed-water, 'what was your father but a gallows-bird of a bum-bailiff?'
'And then they fell a fighting and scratching; and Anniseed-water (the present Mrs. Jerry Sullivan) was getting well cuffed, when I came to her assistance. So that was our first meeting.'
'You may boast of it,' said I. 'Now then for your courtship.'
'You shall hear,' said he. 'She was so much obliged to me, that she asked me home to tea, and I went. I found her a buxom widow, and at that time she was as fine a doorful, as tight a wench over a washing-tub, as you would wish to see. And there was her daughter, and a great deal of good company;—the tailor's wife, and the barber's wife, and the pawnbroker's wife; and none so grand as they. And they told as many lies over the first dish of tea as a parcel of porters would over twenty barrels of strong beer. And a young valet, who I could see was courting the widow, swore that it was as good to be out of the world as out of the fashion, and then he whispered to her that she looked killing genteel. But I only pinched her elbow, and I thought she liked that better.'