Johnny. O! Quit, now! You hurt!
Mrs. S. Hope I do. You jest stir out er this room till I’ve done with yer, if you dare! (Sits in rocking-chair, and rocks violently.) Sakes alive! It’s enough to drive one ravin’ distracted! There’s yer father sleeping like a log, and it’s arter eight o’clock! Where did you two critters go yesterday—hey?
Johnny. Went to the city, of course.
Mrs. S. Yes, yer did go to the city with a load of live and dead stuff; and there’s that man in there, with not a cent in his pocket to show for it. He’d a never got home at all if the brute in the shafts hadn’t known more than the brute in the wagon. Drunk clean through!
Harry. What! Has Mr. Somerby had another spree?
Mrs. S. I should think he had! They come thicker and thicker.—You young one! you speak up, and tell me what you know ’bout it, quick!
Johnny. Well, all I know, dad an’ I went to market. He sold off everything, and then sent me down to Scudder’s to git a new rake, and over to Jinks’s for some sugar, and round to Stevens’s to borry a screw-driver, cos something got loose.
Mrs. S. Somethin’ got loose! I should think so!
Johnny. Said he’d wait till I come back. When I got back, he hadn’t waited; so I went tearin’ round arter him. Man in a white hat said he saw him goin’ down onto the wharf to see the elephant; so I went down. Big crowd down there. They was a auctioneering off a lot of animals. Lion, tiger, and monkeys—Jemimy!—by the dozen. Purty soon I spied dad. He was sprung.
Mrs. S. Sprung? For the land sakes! what’s that? Not overboard?