The girl, possibly feeling a little curiosity herself, came up with her candle. “Master ain’t so well to-night,” remarked she. “He’s gone to bed, and missis is putting him a plaster on his chest.”
The words fell as ice on old Ketch. “A mustard-plaster?” shrieked he.
“What else but a mustard-plaster!” she retorted. “Did you think it was a pitch? There’s a fire lighted in his room, and she’s making it there.”
Nothing more certain. Poor Jenkins, who had coughed more than usual the last two days, perhaps from the wet weather, and whose chest in consequence was very painful, had been ordered to bed this night by his wife when tea was over. She had gone up herself, as soon as her shop was shut, to administer a mustard-plaster. Ketch was quite stunned with uncertainty. A man in bed, with a plaster on his chest, was not likely to invite company to supper.
Before he had seen his way out of the shock, or the girl had done staring at him, Mrs. Jenkins descended the stairs and joined them, having been attracted by the conversation. She had slipped an old buff dressing-gown over her clothes, in her capacity of nurse, and looked rather en deshabille; certainly not like a lady who is about to give an entertainment.
“He says he’s come to supper: tripe and onions,” said the girl, unceremoniously introducing Mr. Ketch and the subject to her wondering mistress.
Mrs. Jenkins, not much more famous for meekness in expressing her opinions than was Ketch, turned her gaze upon that gentleman. “What do you say you have come for?” asked she.
“Why, I have come for supper, that’s what I have come for,” shrieked Ketch, trembling. “Jenkins invited me to supper; tripe and onions; and I’d like to know what it all means, and where the supper is.”
“You are going into your dotage,” said Mrs. Jenkins, with an amount of scorn so great that it exasperated Ketch as much as the words themselves. “You’ll be wanting a lunatic asylum next. Tripe and onions! If Jenkins was to hint at such a thing as a plate of tripe coming inside my house, I’d tripe him. There’s nothing I have such a hatred to as tripe; and he knows it.”
“Is this the way to treat a man?” foamed Ketch, disappointment and hunger driving him almost into the state hinted at by Mrs. Jenkins. “Joe Jenkins sends me down a note an hour ago, to come here to supper with his old father, and it was to be tripe and onions! It is tripe night!” he continued, rather wandering from the point of argument, as tears filled his eyes. “You can’t deny as it’s tripe night.”