“Ve vont quarrel about Christun names, Mister Timtiffin. Plain Timvig vill do for me. The Muffs and all that's a-skin to'em is not over-purtickler about names.”
Here the poll parrot, that had been listening to and scrutinizing the intruder from head to foot, struck up the old song,
“Don't you know the muffin man!
Don't you know his name?”
“A comical sort of a bird that is!” remarked the master mason. “I'm come, I say, Mister Tumvhim to fetch you to Mrs. Flumgarten; for she says it's werry mystified, but you gay-looking, dandyfied, middle-aged gentlemen, (Mrs. Flumgarten hates gay-looking, dandified, middle-aged gentlemen,) are awful loiterers by the vay. You can't see a smart bonnet or a pretty turn'd ankle, but you old galhant gay Lotharios must stop and look after'em; and that, she says, is werry low—and the Muffs, Fubsys, and Flumgartens hates vhat's low.”
Uncle Timothy made a low bow.
“Mrs. Flumgarten von't go to the Museum: she could abide the stuffed birds and monkeys; but she can't a-bear old war-ses, and old bronze-eyes. She hates, too, them Algerine (Elgin?) marbles.”
The middle-aged gentleman inwardly rejoiced at Mrs. Flumgarten's antipathies.
“And she von't go to the play, for Mrs. Flumgarten hates your acting nonsensical mock stuff; and she don't think she'll go to the Fancy Fair, for Mrs. Flumgarten—it's wery funny that—hates fun.”
At this moment, Mr. Bosky's Louis Quatorze clock struck a musical quarter, and the parrot responded with two lines from one of the laureat's lyrics;