"Mr. Quackenboss," I say, with my sweetest smile, "have you any nice butter?"
He looks out of the window, drums on the counter, and answers "Yes," in a tone of great reserve.
"I should like to look at some," I say, undiscouraged.
"It's down cellar," he replies, gloomily chewing a bit of chip and casting sinister glances at me.
"Well," I say, cheerfully, "shall I go down there and look at it?"
"How much do you want?" he asks, suspiciously.
"That depends on how well I like it," say I.
"I s'pose I could get up a cask," he says in a ruminating tone; and now he calls his partner, a cheerful, fat, roly-poly little cockney Englishman, who flings his h's round in the most generous and reckless style. His alert manner seems to say that he would get up forty casks a minute and throw them all at my feet, if it would give me any pleasure.
So the butter-cask is got up and opened, and my severe friend stands looking down on it and me as if he would say, "This also is vanity."