“Do?” rejoined Lucifer, with drunken gravity—“haul on the other, to be sure—there is one left, an’t there?—so hard a-port, and run him up against that gun at the street corner, will ye? That will stop him, or the devil is in it.”
Crash—it was done—and over the horse’s ears we both flew like skyrockets; but, strange to tell, although we had wedged the wheel of the ketureen fast as a wreck on a reef, with the cannon that was stuck into the ground postwise between it and the body, there was no damage done beyond the springing of the starboard shaft, so, with the assistance of the negro servant, who had been thrown from his perch behind, by a shock that frightened him out of his wits, we hove the voiture off again, and arrived in safety at friend Shingle’s once more. Here we found the table set out with devilled turkey, and a variety of high-spiced dishes; and, to make a long story short, we had another set to, during which, as an interlude, Longtram capsized Shingle out of the sofa he had again lain down on, in an attempt to jump over it, and broke his arm; and, being the soberest man of the company, I started off, guided by a negro servant, for Doctor Greyfriars. On our return, the first thing that met our eyes was the redoubted Don himself, lying on his back where he had fallen at his leap, with his head over the step at the door of the piazza. I thought his neck was broken; and the doctor, considering that he was the culprit to be carved, forthwith had him carried in, his coat taken off, and was about striking a phleme into him, when Isaac’s voice sounded from the inner apartment, where he had lain all the while below the sofa like a crushed frog, the party in the background, who were boosing away, being totally unconscious of his mishap, as they sat at table in the room beyond, enjoying themselves, impressed apparently with the belief that the whole affair was a lark.
“Doctor, doctor,” shouted he in great pain,—“here, here—it is me that is murdered—that chap is only dead drunk, but I am really dead, or will be, if you don’t help.”
At length the arm was set, and Shingle put to bed, and the whole crew dispersed themselves, each moving off as well as he could towards his own home.
But the cream of the jest was richest next day. Parson Charley, who, drunk as he had been overnight, still retained a confused recollection of the parties who had made the irruption, in the morning applied to Mr Smoothpate to have his bell restored, when the latter told him, with the utmost gravity, that Mr Onyx Steady was the culprit, who, by the by, had disappeared from Shingle’s before the bell interlude, and, in fact, was wholly ignorant of the transaction. “Certainly,” quoth Smoothpate, with the greatest seriousness, “a most unlikely person, I will confess, Charley, as he is a grave, respectable man; still, you know, the most demure cats sometimes steal cream, Charley; so, parson, my good man, Mr Onyx Steady has your bell, and no one else.”
Whereupon, away trudged Charley to Mr Steady’s warehouse, pulling off his hat with a formal salaam, “Good Massa Onyx—sweet Massa Teady—pray give me de bell.” Here the sable clerigo gathered himself up, and leant composedly on his long staff, hat still in hand, and ear turned towards Mr Steady, awaiting his answer.
“Bell!” ejaculated Steady, in great amazement,—“bell! what bell?”
“Oh, good, sweet Massa Onyx, dear Massa Onyx Teady, every body know you good person—quiet, wise somebody you is—all person sabe dat,” whined Charley; then slipping near our friend, he whispered to him—“but de best of we lob bit of fon now and dende best of we lef to himshef sometime.”
“Confound the fellow!” quoth Onyx, rather pushed off his balance by such an unlooked—for attack before his clerks; “get out of my house, sir what the mischief do I know of you or your infernal bell? I wish the tongue of it was in your stomach—get out, sir, away with you.”
Charley could stand this no longer, and losing patience, “D—n me eye, you is de tief, sir—so give me de bell, Massa Teady, or I sall pull you go before de Mayor, Massa Teady, and you sall be shame, Massa Teady; and it may be you sall be export to de Bay of Honduras, Massa Teady. Aha, how you will like dat, Massa Teady? you sall be export may be for break into chapel, during sarvice, and teal bell—aha, teal bell—who ever yeerie one crime equal to dat!”