“Jenny, you baggage, two tumblers and silver teaspoons in no time. And the little kettle; mind now, I tell you the little kettle. Canʼt you understand, gal, that I may want to shave with the water, but ainʼt going to have the foot–tub?”
Jennyʼs broad face, mapped with coal–dust, grinned from ear to ear, as she looked at her master saucily—a proof almost infallible of a very genial government. She heard that shaving joke every day, and, the more she heard it, the more she enjoyed it. So the British public, at a theatre, or an election, appreciates a joke according to the square of the number of the times the joke has been poked at it. Hurrah for the slow perception, and the blunt knife that opens the oyster!
“Queer gal, that,” said Clinkers, producing his raw material; “uncommon queer gal, sir, as any you may have met with.”
“No doubt of it,” replied Cradock; “and now for the cause of my visit——”
“Hang me, sir, you donʼt understand that gal. I say she is the queerest gal that ever lived out of a barge. You should see her when she gets along of some of them small–coals fellows. Blow me if she canʼt twist a dozen of them round her finger, sir.”
“And her master too,” thought Cradock; “unless I am much mistaken, she will be the new Mrs. Clinkers.”
Jenny heard most of her masterʼs commentary as she went to and fro, and she kept up a constant grin without speech, in the manner of an empty coal–scuttle.
“Ah, sir, grief is a dry thing, a sad dry thing;” and Clinkers banged down his tumbler till the spoon reeled round the brandy; “no business, if you please now, not a word of business till we both be below the fiddle; and, if it isnʼt to your liking, speak out like a man, sir.”
“Below the fiddle, Mr. Clinkers! What fiddle? I donʼt at all understand you.”
“Very few people does, young man; very few people indeed. Scarcely any, I may say, except Jenny and the cookshop woman; and the latter have got encumbrances as quite outweighs the business. Ainʼt you ever heard of the fiddle of a teaspoon, sir?”