“What’s the matter? what’s the matter?” again enquired Mrs. Oldtimes.
“Why he be playin’ dominoes wi thic Sergeant.”
“O,” said the landlady, “I was afraid something had
happened. We’re not allowed to know anything about dominoes or card-playing in our house—the Law forbids our knowing it, Mr. Bumpkin; so, if you please, we will not talk about it—I wish to conduct my house as it always has been for the last five-and-twenty years, in peace and quietness and respectability, Mr. Bumpkin, which nobody can never say to the contrairy. It was only the last licensing day Mr. Twiddletwaddle, the chairman of the Bench, said as it were the best conducted house in Westminster.”
Now whether it was that the report of this domino playing was made in the presence of so high a dignitary of the law as Mr. O’Rapley, or from any other cause, I cannot say, but Mrs. Oldtimes was really indignant, and positively refused to accept any statement which involved the character of her establishment.
“I think,” she continued, addressing Mr. O’Rapley, “you have known this house for some time, sir.”
“I have,” said O’Rapley. “I have passed it every evening for the last ten years.”
“Ah now, to be sure—you hear that, Mr. Bumpkin. What do you think of that?”
“Never saw anything wrong, I will say that.”
“Never a game in my house, if I knows it; and what’s more, I won’t believe it until I sees it.”