Mr. Liversedge drew up a spare chair, and lowered himself into it, “Where to?” he demanded.
“I dunno, nor I don’t care. How you ever come to think there was any good to be got out of such a bird-witted wench downright queers me! Good riddance to her, that’s what I say!”
“Bird-witted she may be,” replied Mr. Liversedge fair-mindedly, “but where, I ask you to tell me, Joe, could you find a more lovely piece?”
The gentleman in riding-dress paused between mouthfuls to heave a deep sigh. “Ah, if ever I see such a rare bleached mort!” he said, shaking his head. “What a highflyer, Sam! But no sense in her cockloft, which makes her dangerous ware for a man like me. Else I would have—”
“You would have done no such thing, Nat Shifnal, as I have erstwhile made plain to you!” said Mr. Liversedge. “Nothing could be more fatal for a man in my position than to be bringing damaged goods to market!” He stretched out a hand for the dish on which a somewhat mutilated sirloin of beef reposed, and drew it towards him. “I will trouble you for the carving-knife, Joe,” he said, with dignity.
His brother pushed it across the table. “She’s loped off in pudding-time, that’s what I say and will hold to!” he announced. “If you had of gone on the dub-lay, Sam, it’s low, but not a word would you have heard out of me! Nor I wouldn’t have blamed you for turning bridle-cull, like Nat here. But you took and tried to be a petticoat-pensioner, and that’s what I don’t hold with, and nothing will make me say different!”
Mr. Liversedge replied in a lofty tone that he would thank his brother not to use such vulgar terms to him. “There is, I will grant, a certain distinction attached to those who embrace the High Toby as their profession. But the dub-lay—or, as I prefer to call it, the very ignoble calling of a common pickpocket—is something I thank God I have never yet been obliged even to contemplate!”
“No, because every time as you’re nippered it’s me as stands huff!” retorted Mr. Minims.
“Easy, now, easy!” begged Mr. Shifnal placably. “I don’t say as Sam done right this time, but there’s no denying, Joe, he’s got gifts. For one thing, he talks as nice as a nun’s hen; and for another, there ain’t anyone to touch him for drinking a young ’un into a fit state for plucking.”
“Then let him stick to it!” retorted Mr. Mimms. “I got nothing against that lay, but petticoat-pensioners I can’t stomach!”