“Sirs,” exclaimed the satirical-nosed gentleman, “I alone am to blame for this audacious vivacity of my sister's son. I turned it on, and lo! it hath inundated us with buffoonery. Sirrah!” shaking the identical plant that Dr. Johnson travelled with through the Hebrides, Tom Davies's shilling's worth for the broad shoulders of Macpherson, “thou shalt find in future that I joke with my cudgel!” *
* “Hombre burlo yo con mi escopeta!” was the characteristic
saying of the celebrated Spanish bandit Josse Maria.
But it was labour in vain; the “laughing devil,” so peculiar to the eye of the middle-aged gentleman, leered ludicrous defiance to his half-smiling half-sulky mouth. As a last determined effort, he shook his head at Mr. Bosky, whereupon Mr. Bosky shook his hand. The mutual grasp was electrical, and thus ended the brief farce of Uncle Timothy's furor.
“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Bosky, in a subdued tone, “if I could believe that Uncle Timothy had been really in earnest, my penitential punch should be turned into bitter aloes, sweetened with assafoetida, to expiate an offence against the earliest, best, and dearest friend I ever knew! But I owed Uncle Timothy a revenge. Of late he has worn a serious brow, a mournful smile. There has been melancholy in his mirth, and sadness in his song; this, he well knows, cuts me to the quick; and it is not until he is angry,—or, rather” (smiling affectionately at Uncle Tim) “until he thinks himself so,”—(here Uncle Tim gave Mr. Bosky one of his blandest looks) “that he is 'cockered and spirited up,' and the cloud passes away. What do I not owe to my more than father?”
Uncle Timothy got enormously fidgety; he beat Lucifer's tattoo with his right leg, and began fumbling in both waistcoat pockets for his snuffbox.
“A precocious young urchin, gentlemen, in every sort of mischief!” interrupted Uncle Timothy with nervous impetuosity, “on whose birch-provoking little body as many besoms were bestowed as would set up the best chandler in Christendom!”
“An orphan too—”
“Benjamin Bosky! Benjamin Bosky! don't—don't be a blockhead!”
“He reared, educated, and made me what I am. And, though sometimes I may too far presume upon his good-nature, and foolishly, fondly fancy myself a boy again—”
“Putting hot parched peas and cherry-stones into my boots, as being good for chilblains, * and strewing the inside of my bed with horse-hair to send me to sleep, after a fortnight's dancing round my room with the toothache!”