“Ye seem to have a comfortable berth of it, my frind,” observed the martial gentleman, after burying his countenance for nearly a minute in a pewter-pot.
“Well, the fact is,” returned Mr. Scales, “I manage to make myself happy, because I am naturally of a gay and lively disposition, and I have a great many friends who come to see me. Moreover, I have a few pounds coming in from a snug little annuity—and therefore I can afford those luxuries which the others have no chance of obtaining. But if it weren’t for these circumstances, captain,” added Mr. Scales, sinking his voice to a mysterious whisper, “I should never be able to endure the place.”
“Not endure the place!” repeated the captain, who manifested unfeigned surprise at the observation. “Be the holy poker-r-r! and it sames a broth of a place, it does!”
“Ah! it’s all very well for people out of doors to be told of the existence of the charity,” resumed the Brother; “and how it gives an asylum to eighty poor men, who are widowers and past fifty years of age: but it’s the discipline, my dear sir—the interior discipline,—and then the manner in which we are treated by the authorities of the establishment!”
“Then there’s abuses in the Charter-r-r House as well as elsewhere?” said the captain, interrogatively. “Blood and thunther! where the divil aren’t there abuses, if this same is the case?”
“No where, when the Church has any influence in the matter,” returned Mr. Scales. “But I will explain myself more fully. This institution, you must know, was founded for the purpose of affording an asylum to poor and deserving men, chiefly of the literary or learned professions. But will you believe it? There’s scarcely a literary man in the place; and the only one of any repute at all is Mr. Valcrieff, the celebrated dramatic author. The patrons put in their old and worn-out butlers or lacqueys;—but this would not matter, so long as worthy, deserving, and respectable characters were nominated—which is not the case——”
“Then you have some quare characters among ye, I’ll be afther guessing?” exclaimed the captain.
“We have indeed, my friend,” responded Mr. Scales; “and that is what I chiefly complain of. For instance, we’ve lately had a certain Colonel Tickner thrust upon us—but who is no more a Colonel than I am. A short time ago he called himself Major Tickner—and a little while before that, he was Captain Tickner. So, you perceive, he rises rapidly—and I have no doubt he will be a General next week.”
“A Ginral, be Jasus!” cried Captain O’Blunderbuss. “It’s thrue I might have been one myself by this time, if I’d only stuck to the service: but I’ll swear by the holy poker-r, that your Colonel Tickner is nothing more nor less than an imposthor—a vile imposthor,—and it’s meself that’ll unmask him.”
The gallant gentleman deemed it necessary to fly into a passion relative to the pretences of the self-styled Colonel Tickner to a high military rank; inasmuch as such a display of indignation on his part at the assumption of another, seemed to justify his own right to the honourable grade of Captain.