"Vell, I'm blowed if you an't precious sveet on that 'ere phiz o' your'n, young un!"
I turned in horror. Close behind me there stood a butcher's boy—the butcher's boy! (there was but one in London that day)—those eyes—those corduroys—that tray! I shrunk within myself—I almost wished that the bar I stood on might give way and admit me into the "airy." I mechanically uttered some deprecatory expression, scarce conscious of anything but the existence of a butcher's boy, with large eyes, and a tray!
"Vell, Turnips!" (I had light—very light hair) "vot are yer a looking at now?—a com-paring that ugly phiz o' yourn with a gen'leman's?" I felt that the last word conveyed a reproach, and my spirits rose so high as to explode in the assertion, "I didn't speak to you!"
"O, didn't yer, Turnips?-vell, just take that, then; and never mind the change!"
His hand was raised rapidly to his tray—a dark substance rose high in the air. Blash! it came—all over my face—my collar: the cherished collar! My eyes sought the pane wherein so lately I had gazed with pride. "One dark red stain" was too visible. I felt then, and knew, that I had had my face slapped—literally slapped—with a piece of liver!
The criminal on the gallows, exposed to the groans of the brutal mob, may feel as degraded (no one else can) as I did, whilst weeping I pursued my way. The very red plush smalls of him who admitted me at last into the privacy of a house, from the gaze of grinning thousands, seemed to mock my misery. I dared not go up-stairs. I remained below weeping; till a kind old lady—whence should relief to the wretched come?—came to comfort me. My face was cleansed from the stain, but remembrance could not be washed away; I was supplied with a pretty suit from her son's wardrobe—it could not cover my sense of degradation. Even the desired dinner failed to bring the desired oblivion; and when two elderly ladies who would sing duets began to practise their favourite one, the words that struck my ears were, "Flow on, thou shining liver!" * * *
John Copus.
The miscreant author of my woe has not escaped. For in one of his limnings in whose vehicle I ride, there may be seen, with a malicious grin on his face, such as he wore after the consummation of my woe, contemplating the capture of poor Oliver Twist by the interesting Nancy, and her ruffian Bill Sikes—a butcher's boy. Note him well—the butcher's boy. Hair—corduroys—and tray!—J. C.
⁂ Our sensitive and acutely-suffering correspondent who so keenly remembers the woes of his boyhood, has, by the force of his memory, recalled to our own recollection another specimen of the tray-carrying fraternity. We subjoin his portrait, for the benefit of every juvenile diner-out who entertains a horror of liver! The artist insists that it is a portrait, and no invention.
