"Oh, ma'am! I'll tell him I've got my knives to clean, and shut the door very gently in his face."
"Thank you, William, I shall feel obliged to you."
Smith, the haberdasher of Oxford-street, was the next person announced to me, and he followed William into the drawing-room. He is a short, thick-built man, with little twinkling eyes, expressive of eager curiosity, and a bald head. This man had known me when I was quite an infant, having served my mother I believe before I was born, and often talked and played with us all while children. As I grew up, his extreme vulgarity, and the amorous twinkle of his little eyes, furnished me with so much real sport and amusement, that, in gratitude for his being so very ridiculous, I had by degrees lost sight of all my usual reserve towards these sort of people: and once, when I was about eleven years of age, this man caught me in the very act of mimicking his amorous leers at our maidservant. I was close behind him and he saw me in the looking-glass.
"Oh you rogue!" said Smith, and from that day good-bye all serious reserve between Smith and me. I would have cut him, only nobody sold such good gloves and ribbons. I often took people to his shop to amuse them, while I encouraged Smith to be as ridiculous as possible, by affecting to be rather flattered by his beautiful leering and his soft speeches.
Smith was as deaf as a post, and never spoke without popping his ear against one's mouth, to catch the answer, and saying, "Hay! Hay!" long before one's lips could move to address him.
I guessed at the motive for his visiting me on this occasion, for I knew that two of my promissory notes of hand for fifty pounds each had been returned to him on that morning, as they had also been three months before, when I made him renew them. Not that I was in any sort of difficulty during the whole period I remained with Lord Ponsonby, who always took care of me and for me; but Smith's scolding furnished me with so much entertainment, that I purposely neglected his bills, knowing his high charges and how well he could afford to give long credit. He came into the room, with a firmer step than usual and his bow was more stately.
"Your sarvant, Miss."
"Smith," said I, "those bills were paid to-day, I hope?"
Smith shook his head. "Too bad, too bad, Miss, upon my word!"