“Massa Cockle, just now you tell Massa Farren dat you drink so much, all for good nature Massa Piper—I do same all for good nature.”
“Well, Mr Moonshine, I must have some grog,” replied Cockle, “and as you helped yourself last night, now you must help me;—get it how you can, I give you just ten minutes—”
“’Pose you give gib me ten shillings, sar,” interrupted Moonshine, “dat better.”
“Cash is all gone. I havn’t a skillick till quarter-day, not a shot in the locker till Wednesday. Either get me some more grog, or you’ll get more kicks than halfpence.”
“You no ab money—you no ab tick—how I get grog, Massa Cockle? Missy O’Bottom, she tells me, last quarter day, no pay whole bill, she not half like it; she say you great deceiver, and no trust more.”
“Confound the old hag! Would you believe it, Bob, that Mrs Rowbottom has wanted to grapple with me these last two years—wants to make me landlord of the Goose and Pepper-box, taking her as a fixture with the premises. I suspect I should be the goose and she the pepper-box;—but we never could shape that course. In the first place, there’s too much of her; and, in the next, there’s too much of me. I explained this to the old lady as well as I could; and she swelled up as big as a balloon, saying, that, when people were really attached, they never attached any weight to such trifling obstacles.”
“But you must have been sweet upon her, Cockle?”
“Nothing more than a little sugar to take the nauseous taste of my long bill out of her mouth. As for the love part of the story, that was all her own. I never contradict a lady, because it’s not polite; but since I explained, the old woman has huffed, and won’t trust me with half a quartern—will she, Moonshine?”
“No, sar: when I try talk her over, and make promise, she say dat all moonshine. But, sar, I try ’gain—I tink I know how.” And Moonshine disappeared, leaving us in the dark as to what his plans might be.
“I wonder you never did marry, Cockle,” I observed.