“I can assure you, sir, he’s considered such a handsome dog by all the ladies as has seen him since his awival, that it’s been as much as we could do to get some of them away fwom him, for they, one and all, declare that he’s the most beautiful Italian they’ve ever beheld, and that they’ve half a mind to wun away with the pet.”
“Well,” exclaimed the Major, “hang me if I can see what the women can find to admire in the filthy hairy brutes.”
“They say, sir,” replied the official, “he’s so wemarkably elegant, and such a beautiful foxy colour. A lady of title, I can assure you, sir, told me this vewy morning, that if the beautiful dog was hers, the pet should have nothing but chickens to eat, because meat, she said, always made their bweath foul.”
Here the Major raved and stormed against the fair sex in general, and his niece in particular, in such a manner as made the youthful Official stare again in wonder, at the apparent unmeaningness of his conduct.
When the gentleman had grown a little calm, the clerk ventured, before taking his leave, to say he was instructed to wequest him to send for that baggage of his as soon as possible.
Now, the Major, however irate he might have felt against his runaway niece, was in no way inclined to permit a stranger to apply such a term to a female member of his family. The consequence was, that the words were no sooner uttered, than the exasperated soldier rushed at the terrified young clerk, and shaking him violently by the collar, demanded to know what he meant by “baggage.”
The youth was only able to stammer out that he alluded to his “heap,” up at their place.
The term “heap,” applied to a lady, only served to increase the fury of the Major; so releasing his hold of the young gentleman’s collar, he proceeded to kick him round and round the room with his wooden leg.
At this moment, the sound of the policeman’s rattle, and the shrieks of the ladies, were heard from below, and the astonished Major stood for a minute with his wooden leg suspended horizontally in the air, while the terrified young clerk for an instant ceased to fly before the enraged “man of war.” The Major, forgetting his anger in the alarm, hurried down stairs as fast as his wooden leg would carry him; while the little railway official no sooner saw the Major turn the corner of the kitchen stairs, than he retreated rapidly to the street-door, and once safely on the step, proceeded to make the best use of his heels.
The neighbouring policeman, however, who, in answer to the sound of the rattle, came streaming in all directions towards the spot, observing the youth flying from the premises, and naturally viewing the circumstance as of a most suspicious character, raised a cry of “Stop thief!” and gave immediate chase to the terrified little Clerk. For a minute, the railway hobbledehoy was undecided as to his course of action. As he scampered along, he knew not what to do; to go back was to brave the terrors of the Major’s wooden leg—while to proceed, was to be hunted through the London streets as a pickpocket. However, his mind was soon made up, for seeing in the distance a fashionably dressed young lady, whose acquaintance he had made at Cremorne, he could not bring himself to pass her at full speed, with a crowd at his heels, so he turned back and ran into the arms of the posterior policeman, by whom he was instantly collared, and dragged towards the house he had left, with a crowd of boys in his wake.