"Well said," Madame Rhan, "but the bishop might as soon call the parson pig-stealer."
"You lie, you bat. I couple with no cove but my own. But say, Harry, will you suffer yourself to be made a two-legged stool of by a flag-about?"
"Oh! button your bone-box, Peg," replied Harry. "Bell's a rum blowen, and you only patter because your ogle's as green as the Emerald Isle."
"It's not half so green as yourself, halter-mad Harry," retorted Peg; "for you know if I wished to nose I could have you twisted—not to mention any thing about the cull that was hushed for his reader."
On a bench, close by the last speaker, was seated Hitch, a police officer, who appeared to be quite at home with the company, and to occasion no alarm or misgivings; but the moment Peg mentioned the circumstance of "the cull that was hushed for his reader," he rose from the table, drew forth a pair of handcuffs, and tapping Knapp's rival on the shoulder, playfully whispered:
"Harry, my lad, the game's up; hold out your wrists for the ruffles."
"There they are, Mr. Hitch, though I suppose you'll be asking me in a week or so to hold out my gorge for a Tyburn tippet."
These proceedings naturally drew a crowd around the parties concerned; but though all sympathized with the prisoner, and the minion of the law was without any assistant, yet there was not the slightest attempt at a rescue, or even the least disposition manifested by the captive of a desire to escape.
"Only nine months on the pad, and to be up for scragging! What a pity!"
"He's too young—he hasn't had his lark half out; and it's like making a man pay a debt he don't owe, to twist him before he has gone the rounds."