Mr. Spohf, having played all out of St. Stiff the Martyr, walks home moodily:—instead of finding his dinner as usual, the chop and potato, he learns that his landlord, Mr. Strap, the greengrocer, has
stopped the supplies. It is quarter-day!—Strap thinks of the five weeks’ arrears, and Mr. Spohf’s inability to pay for his lodgings; so, Mr. and Mrs. Strap have surprised him, by preparing a huge leg of mutton and pudding; for they know he does not, as of old, go to the “Willer.” After this humble repast, which was relished as much as any could be, and was far less likely to leave unpleasant sensations than if it had been more costly, they draw round the fire; and master Ichabod Strap, one of the choristers of St. Stiff the Martyr, is playing with a shilling, polishing the coin upon his sleeve—it is the identical one said to have been put in the plate by Captain de Camp, and given by Mr. Flyntflayer (the gentleman who held the gothic platter) to Mrs. Strap, the pue-opener, advising her at the same time to nail it to the counter—a counterfeit to deter “smashers.” But, somehow, the coin seemed doomed to remain unholy, for no orifice or artifice could have rendered it a lucky one; it was shown to Mr. Spohf, who thought it bad, and that it might have gotten into the plate by mistake; Mrs. Strap knew it bad—an intentional perpetration,—and, like the giver, not worth a dump; Mr. Strap not only thought it bad, but proved it so; for, after having spun, sounded, and eaten a portion of it, he cast the coin into the glowing fire, where the silver quickly changed, dropping, like quick-silver, among the ashes, to be picked out by Ichabod, very unlike a sterling coin.
Old Strap, who had taken “the pledge,” but since introduced an
exceptional clause in favour of feasts and festivals,
gets out the black bottle for fraternity’s sake. They take a pipe a-piece, and so softened is the little organist with their genuine unsophisticated kindness, that he sees all his cares fly, and nothing but joys in the wreathed curls of smoke betaking themselves up the chimney:—he sees Messrs. Blow