“You're a monkey yourself, Mr. Penguillum,” cried the enraged housekeeper, “or a bear—a black, beastly bear! and ain't fit for a decent woman to stay with. I'll never, keep your company agin, sir, if I should live thirty years with the Judge. Sitch talk is more befitting the kitchen than the keeping-room of a house of one who is well-to-do in the world.”
“Look you, Mistress Pitty—Patty———Prettybones, mayhap I'm some such matter as a bear, as they will find who come to grapple with me; but dam'me if I'm a monkey—a thing that chatters without knowing a word of what it says—a parrot; that will hold a dialogue, for what an honest man knows, in a dozen languages; mayhap in the Bay of State lingo; mayhap in Greek or High Dutch. But dost it know what it means itself? canst answer me that, good woman? Your midshipman can sing out, and pass the word, when the captain gives the order, but just send him adrift by himself, and let him work the ship of his own head, and stop my grog if you don't find all the Johnny Raws laughing at him.”
“Stop your grog, indeed!” said Remarkable, rising with great indignation, and seizing a candle; “you're groggy now, Benjamin and I'll quit the room before I hear any misbecoming words from you.” The housekeeper retired, with a manner but little less dignified, as she thought, than the air of the heiress, muttering as she drew the door after her, with a noise like the report of a musket, the opprobrious terms of “drunkard,” “sot,” and “beast.”
“Who's that you say is drunk?” cried Benjamin fiercely, rising and making a movement toward Remarkable. “You talk of mustering yourself with a lady you're just fit to grumble and find fault. Where the devil should you larn behavior and dictionary? in your damned Bay of State, ha?”
Benjamin here fell back in his chair, and soon gave vent to certain ominous sounds, which resembled not a little the growling of his favorite animal the bear itself. Before, however, he was quite locked—to use the language that would suit the Della-cruscan humor of certain refined minds of the present day—“in the arms of Morpheus,” he spoke aloud, observing due pauses between his epithets, the impressive terms of “monkey,” “parrot,” “picnic,” “tar pot,” and “linguisters”
We shall not attempt to explain his meaning nor connect his sentences; and our readers must be satisfied with our informing them that they were expressed with all that coolness of contempt that a man might well be supposed to feel for a monkey.
Nearly two hours passed in this sleep before the major domo was awakened by the noisy entrance of Richard, Major Hartmann, and the master of the mansion. Benjamin so far rallied his confused faculties as to shape the course of the two former to their respective apartments, when he disappeared himself, leaving the task of securing the house to him who was most interested in its safety. Locks and bars were but little attended to in the early days of that settlement, and so soon as Marmaduke had given an eye to the enormous fires of his dwelling he retired. With this act of prudence closes the first night of our tale.
CHAPTER XVI
“Watch (aside).
Some treason, masters—
Yet stand close.”
—Much Ado About Nothing.