"I said seize 'em! and I don't care the rinsings of that glass if you tell 'em so,—a set of mandrakes."
"Oh, Jesse Ferret, Jesse Ferret,—as a man who sets up to be an example, what are you coming to!" exclaimed the landlady, with uplifted hands. "Ef your children could hear such profanity. I declare to patience, you'd try the quarters of the meekest mother in the universe."
How far this conjugal outflash might have gone in its natural course, it is impossible for me to say; although Nim Porter, who pretended to be asleep all the time, and who heard every word of it, and related it with much pleasantry to me, says he has often witnessed these breezes between this worthy couple, and always found that they made up as soon as Mrs. Ferret got out of breath—which, by-the-by, she being short-winded, generally occurred in about half an hour from the first rising of her anger; but, on the present occasion, it was happily interrupted by the entrance of Theodore Fog, Dabbs, the foreman in Eliphalet Fox's printing-office, Flan Sucker, More M'Nulty, and Sim Travers, who all marched directly up to the bar. I had entered upon the heels of this party, and having taken up "The Whole Hog" for my perusal, in one corner of the room, was myself a witness to the scene that followed.
Nim Porter, who was seated in an elbow-chair, resting the back of his head against a window-sill at the opposite end of the bar-room and counterfeiting sleep, was now roused up to attend to the customers.
"My dear Mrs. Ferret—paragon of landladies," said Fog, "Pillar—yes, bolster of our cause—some drink! Dabbs owes a treat, and we have resolved that the libation shall be made under the eye of our own queen. Dabbs, say what the mixture shall be; I'm not particular—my throat is a turnpike traveled by all imaginable potations. A mint julep, Dabbs? gentlemen! Flan, a julep? Yes? A julep, a julep all round. Agreed to, nem. con. Mrs. Ferret, five juleps; charge Dabbs—Dabbs's treat."
Mrs. Ferret's anger against her spouse gradually faded under this accost; a slight glimpse of sunshine began to break over her visage as she addressed herself to the task of preparing the required compounds, and Nim Porter busied himself in picking sprigs of mint from a large bouquet of that invaluable plant, which flourished in native verdure over the rim of a two quart tumbler, in which it seemed to grow as in a flower-pot.
Ferret had retreated from the bar toward the door which looked upon the street; and Theodore Fog, who, as the truth must be spoken, was at this hour very considerably advanced toward his customary zenith of excitement, thrust his hands under the skirts of his striped gingham coatee, and strutted with the air of a prime minister in a farce, around the room.
"Nim," said he,
"'Bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,
She strike upon the bell.'