Bell here produced a rum bing, which at once made her popular, and the nucleus of a host of admirers; for, as it respects money, it is with rogues and their doxeys as with all the rest of the world. Bell truly justified the adage, that "What's got over the devil's back, goes under the devil's belly;" for she gave a general order to the rum-bluffer, to supply all the lush that was called for by the company, at her expense; and thereon there was a demand for max, oil of barby, red tape, blue ruin, white velvet, and so forth, that kept all the tapsters in the establishment in a state of restless activity for the next half-hour.
"Bell, you're benish to-night," exclaimed Knapp, who probably had a design on the purse, which the course of events somewhat interfered with.
"Stubble your red rag," answered a good-looking young fellow. "Bell had better flash her dibs than let you bubble her out of them."
"Why, you joskin," retorted Jim; "if you don't stow your whids I'll put your bowsprit in parenthesis. Ogle the cove, Bell—he wants to pass for a snafler in his belcher tye, though he never bid higher than a wipe in an upper benjamin."
"I may bid as high as your pintle, and make you squint like a bag of nails," replied the intruder, "though you rub us to whit for it."
"Oh! it's all plummy," said Knapp, "so you may cly your daddles. But come, Bell, let us track the dancers and rumble the flats, for I'm tired of pattering flash and lushing jackey."
"Bar that toss, Jim," said Bell, "for you're as fly at the pictures, as the devil at lying, and I would rather be a knight of Alsatia than a plucked pigeon."
This resolution produced a round of applause, which was followed by another round of liquor—promptly paid for by the lady of the rum bing, whose generosity now so far extended itself, that she withdrew from Mr. Knapp's protection, and, even without waiting to be asked, deposited herself in the lap of him of the belcher tye. She had scarcely asserted her title to the premises, before it was disputed by another fair damsel, who emphatically declared, that if the tenant in possession did not immediately leave that, she would astonish her mazzard with the contents of a "nipperkin of thunder and lightning."
"If you do," returned Bell, "I will fix my diggers in your dial-plate, and turn it up with red."
"Mizzle, you punk."