“‘Please sir,’ pleaded the boy, ‘don’t mention the wages. I couldn’t stand that. Indeed I couldn’t; it would really be too much for me.’
“‘Why, what do you mean?’ says master.
“‘I mean,’ says Impudence, ‘that I agree with you. I don’t think I could retain the sitivation, cause w’y? In the fust place, I ain’t got no talent at gardenin’. The on’y time I tried it was w’en I planted a toolip in a flower-pot, an’ w’en I dug it up to see ’ow it was a-gittin on a cove told me I’d planted it upside down. However, I wasn’t goin’ to be beat by that cove, so I say to ’im, Jack, I says, I planted it so a purpus, an’ w’en it sprouts I’m a-goin’ to ’ang it up to see if it won’t grow through the ’ole in the bottom. In the second place, I couldn’t retain the sitivation ’cause I don’t intend to take it, though you was to offer me six thousand no shillin’s an’ no pence no farthin’s a year as salary.’
“I r’ally did think master would ha’ dropt out of his chair at that. As for Miss Di, she was so tickled that she gave a sort of hysterical laugh.
“‘Balls,’ said master, ‘show him out, and—’ he pulled up short, but I knew he meant to say have an eye on the great-coats and umbrellas, so I showed the boy out, an’ he went down-stairs, quite quiet, but the last thing I saw of him was performin’ a sort of minstrel dance at the end of the street just before he turned the corner and disappeared.”
“Imp’rence!” exclaimed the cook.
“Naughty, ungrateful boy!” said Mrs Screwbury.
“But it was plucky of him,” said Jessie Summers.
“I would call it cheeky,” said Balls, “I can’t think what put it into his head to go on so.”
If Mr Balls had followed Bobby Frog in spirit, watched his subsequent movements, and listened to his remarks, perhaps he might have understood the meaning of his conduct a little better.