“To the deuce with your chores!” said I. “Don’t drop your old tobacco about here, or I’ll turn you out.”
“Sir!”
“Let me read you this about the Widow Wadman. Said the Widow Wadman—”
“There’s my bill, sir.”
“Very good. Just twist it up, will you—it’s about my smoking-time; and hand a coal, will you, from the hearth yonder!”
“My bill, sir!” said the rascal, turning pale with rage and amazement at my unwonted air (formerly I had always dodged him with a pale face), but too prudent as yet to betray the extremity of his astonishment. “My bill, sir”—and he stiffly poked it at me.
“My friend,” said I, “what a charming morning! How sweet the country looks! Pray, did you hear that extraordinary cock-crow this morning? Take a glass of my stout!”
“Yours? First pay your debts before you offer folks your stout!”
“You think, then, that, properly speaking, I have no stout,” said I, deliberately rising. “I’ll undeceive you. I’ll show you stout of a superior brand to Barclay and Perkins.”
Without more ado, I seized that insolent dun by the slack of his coat—(and, being a lean, shad-bellied wretch, there was plenty of slack to it)—I seized him that way, tied him with a sailor-knot, and, thrusting his bill between his teeth, introduced him to the open country lying round about my place of abode.