“At all events, I must congratulate you on your reformation,” I said.
“Yaas? But it was all those bweastwy little bahds and the bells, you know; and it’s only once a ye-ah you know, Lorton,” he added.
“So you will never do so again till next time—is that what you mean, Horner?” I asked.
“Yaas! But, bai-ey Je-ove, I say, Lorton, my deah fellah, were the Clydes those ladies in hawf-mawning, eh?” said he, smiling feebly in his usual suave manner. He thought he had got hold of a grand joke at my expense.
However, I was not in the least angry with him. I felt too happy to have lost my temper with any one, especially Horner, whom I generally regarded as a poor creature to be tolerated rather than blamed.
“Did you ever hear, Horner,” said I, “how Peabody made his first fortune?”
“No, ’pon honah, I asshaw you, no.”
“Well, then, I’ll tell you, Horner,” said I. “It was by minding his own business, my dear fellow.”
“Bai-ey Je-ove!” he ejaculated, adding, after a pause, “Weally, Lorton, you dawn’t mean it?”
“I suppose,” I continued, “that you are also just as ignorant again how Mr Peabody made his second and greater fortune, eh?”