His worship told her he was sure there was no need of any such ceremony—"Phelim," said he, "has too much good sense to listen to any idle stories about you."
Still, however, poor Florence would not be pacified; and snatching the Gospels from the table, she pressed the sacred volume fervidly to her lips, and then raising her eyes, she exclaimed—"So help me God! that, barring Phelim and myself, I don't know man from woman."
All this while Phelim stood hanging down his head, and fumbling at the buckle of his hat in the simplest manner imaginable. "For shame, Phelim!" said the magistrate, as Florence made an end of her oath—"For shame, Phelim!—How can you stand there and see the distress of such a wife, without coming forward and assuring her of your confidence?—Give her your hand, man, and comfort her as she deserves."
Phelim stretched forth his hand—Florence grasped it almost convulsively, and raising it to her lips, all chapped and sun-burnt as it was, she kissed it—they looked each other in the face for a moment—burst into tears, and hastily left the office arm-in-arm.
CORINTHIANISM.
Mr. Christopher Clutterbuck and Mr. Dionysius Dobbs were charged with having created a great uproar and disturbance in the lobbies of Drury-lane Theatre on the previous evening, and with having grievously assaulted certain peace-officers, who attempted to quell the said disturbance, by taking the said Christopher Clutterbuck and Dionysius Dobbs into custody. These gentlemen were Corinthians—that is to say, in the fashion of the time, gentlemen who were "up, down, and fly to every thing."
They were brought from Covent Garden watch-house, together with a gang of young thieves, disorderly cobblers, drunken prostitutes, houseless vagabonds, and other off-scourings of society; and a very respectable appearance they made.—Christopher Clutterbuck, a long, sturdy, burly-boned, short-visaged, curly-headed, whiskerless subject, with a hat of that cut called a kiddy shallow, and an enormous pair of bull's-eye spectacles; and Dionysius Dobbs, a lean, lack-beardical, long-faced, sunken-cheeked, hollow-eyed, cossack-waisted concern, with a very gentlemanly imperfection of vision, and a silver eye-glass to correspond. And there they were, for nearly an hour before the arrival of the magistrate, crammed among the tagrag-and-bobtail in the common waiting room, or sweating-room, as it is sometimes more properly called.—Mr. Kit Clutterbuck, strutting to and fro, with arms a-kimbo, as vigorous as a turkey-cock; and Dionysius Dobbs, lolling upon one of the forms, lifting his eye-glass from time to time, and gasping like an expiring magpie; whilst the torn and bemudded toggery of each of them, all tacked together with pins, gave ample proof of their love of "Life."
The magistrates having taken their seats, the demolished Corinthians were ushered into their presence, and a charge, of which the following is the substance, was exhibited against them.
Between the third and fourth acts of the play—which happened very appropriately to be Wild Oats—they were swaggering about the lobbies, insulting every body that came in their way; the "big one"—that is to say, Mr. Kit Clutterbuck—offering to mill "any body in the world," and repeatedly exclaiming—"Oh! that a man of my own powers would come athwart me!" and the "thin one" (that's Mr. Dionysius Dobbs) lisping responsively—"That's your sort! Go it, Kitty my covy!" Nobody taking the challenge, Kitty my covy, in the overflowing of his Corinthianism, seized his friend, the delicate Mr. Dionysius Dobbs, and dashing him against the wall of the lobby, shattered one of the lamps with his empty knowledge-box. Dionysius Dobbs took the concussion in good part; but Mr. Spring, the box book-keeper, who happened to witness the feat, was not so well pleased, and sent for Bond, the officer, to remove them. Bond prevailed upon them to be a little more quiet; and the loss of the lamp was overlooked. But in a quarter of an hour after, he found them taking indelicate liberties with the wretched women in the saloons, sparring, bellowing, and capering, like a pair of drunken ourang-outangs, as he said, to the great danger of the mirrors, and the scandal of the saloon itself. He again attempted to remonstrate with them; but all he could get from them was a challenge to fight, from Kitty my covy; and therefore he called for the assistance of his brother officers, determined to remove them entirely from the theatre. A posse of other officers came to his assistance; and then began what the Corinthians called a prime spree—viz., Billingsgate bellowings, black eyes, broken coxcombs, and rending of garments; Kitty Clutterbuck swinging his arms about like the sails of a windmill; Dionysius Dobbs shrieking and clinging to the balustrades like a monkey in hysterics; and the officers dragging at their collars in front, and twisting at their tails behind; and in this fashion they were, by degrees, worked out of the theatre into the street. And then, as they had been so very obstreperous and Corinthianish, the officers determined to deposit them in the disorderly dépôt of the watch-house. In their way thither, Kitty Clutterbuck got hold of an officer's hand, and gave it such a twist that three of the fingers were dislocated, and the tendons of the wrist very seriously injured. When they got into the watch-house, Kitty conducted himself more like a mad bull than any thing else—butting and bellowing at every thing that came in his way. His honour, the nocturnal constable, therefore, ordered that he should be put down below—in the subterranean boudoir; but Mr. Christopher Clutterbuck blew up the boudoir, and his honour too, in good set terms, and threatened his honour, moreover, with the high displeasure of a certain noble marquis. "Tut! none of your gammon!" retorted his honour; and Mr. Christopher Clutterbuck was forthwith "quoited down stairs like a shove-groat shilling;" but not before he had grievously avenged himself on the persons of his quoiters. There were five of them engaged in the service, and every one of them came off halting.