“Hold on, Stiver; you’re away on the wrong tack,” cried Bob, interrupting. “I don’t mean the difficulty o’ findin’ wittles, but how to get Eve to take ’em.”
“Tell her to shut her eyes an’ open her mouth, an’ then shove ’em in,” suggested Pat.
“I’ll shove you into the sea if you go on talking balderdash,” said Bob. “Now, look here, you hain’t got nothin’ to do, have you!”
“If you mean in the way o’ my purfession, Bob, you’re right. I purfess to do anything, but nobody as yet has axed me to do nothin’. In the ways o’ huntin’ up wittles, howsever, I’ve plenty to do. It’s hard lines, and yet I ain’t extravagant in my expectations. Most coves require three good meals a day, w’ereas I’m content with one. I begins at breakfast, an’ I goes on a-eatin’ promiskoously all day till arter supper—w’en I can get it.”
“Just so, Stiver. Now, I want to engage you professionally. Your dooties will be to hang about Mrs Mooney’s but in an offhand, careless sort o’ way, like them superintendent chaps as git five or six hundred a year for doin’ nuffin, an’ be ready at any time to offer to give Eve a shove in the chair. But first you’ll have to take the chair to her, an’ say it was sent to her from—”
“Robert Lumsden, Esquire,” said Pat, seeing that his friend hesitated.
“Not at all, you little idiot,” said Bob sharply. “You mustn’t mention my name on no account.”
“From a gentleman, then,” suggested Pat.
“That might do; but I ain’t a gentleman, Stiver, an’ I can’t allow you to go an’ tell lies.”
“I’d like to know who is if you ain’t,” returned the boy indignantly. “Ain’t a gentleman a man wot’s gentle? An’ w’en you was the other day a-spreadin’ of them lovely shells, an’ crabs, an’ sea-goin’ kooriosities out on her pocket-hankercher, didn’t I see that you was gentle?”