“At all events, I am not aware of any that I need be ashamed of. Show the lady up, waiter.”
In a moment entered a fat unwieldy little mortal, very warm from walking; she sat down in a chair, threw back her tippet, and then exclaimed, “Lord bless you, how you have grown! gemini, if I can hardly believe my eyes; and I declare he don’t know me.”
“I really cannot exactly recollect were I had the pleasure of seeing you before, madam.”
“Well, that’s what I said to Jemima, when I went down in the kitchen, ‘Jemima,’ says I, ‘I wonder if little Peter Simple will know me.’ And Jemima says, ‘I think he would the parrot, marm.’”
“Mrs Handycock, I believe,” said I, recollecting Jemima and the parrot, although, from a little thin woman, she had grown so fat as not to be recognisable.
“Oh! so you’ve found me out, Mr Simple—my lord, I ought to say. Well, I need not ask after your grandfather now, for I know he’s dead; but as I was coming this way for orders, I thought I would just step in and see how you looked.”
“I trust Mr Handycock is well, ma’am. Pray is he a bull or a bear?”
“Lord bless you, Mr Simple—my lord, I should say—he’s been neither bull nor bear for these three years. He was obliged to waddle; if I didn’t know much about bulls and bears, I know very well what a lame duck is to my cost. We’re off the Stock Exchange, and Mr Handycock is set up as a coal merchant.”
“Indeed!”
“Yes; that is, we have no coals, but we take orders, and have half-a-crown a chaldron for our trouble. As Mr Handycock says, it’s a very good business, if you only had enough for it. Perhaps your lordship may be able to give us an order. It’s nothing out of your pocket, and something into ours.”