RAT. A little less familiarity, if you please, young man.
POS. Very well—you must know then, old chap—
RAT. Again—
POS. Well, then, your worship! there, will that do? you must know then, your worship, that I’ve just been robbed of a very considerable sum of money.
RAT. You?
POS. Well, my cousin, Mrs. Somerton has—and as I’m going to marry her, what’s her’s is mine, and what’s mine’s my own; but you know all about that, governor—I mean your worship.
RAT. Which property I suppose, you wish to recover?
POS. Of course, I do; you’ll excuse me, my dear boy, Charley, I mean your worship, but that’s a remarkable stupid observation of your’s.
RAT. Silence—was the robbery you speak of accompanied by violence?
POS. Of course, it was! would you allow a fellow to walk off with your property without making a fight of it, not you, my trojan—I mean your worship! but I’ll tell you all about it. I had just arrived from London, and finding that cousin Somerton had that instant returned home from a ball, I determined to give her an agreeable surprise, and for that purpose I was walking on tiptoe along that passage, when I was almost knocked off my legs by a piercing shriek. “My cousin in danger,” said I, “then Postlethwaite to the rescue,” said I, and with an unfaltering grasp I seized the handle of the door—it was locked, upon which with one blow of this fist—you know my muscular power—I knocked the door clean off its hinges.