“I say, Locust, whenever shall we be ready to set this case down for trial?”
“Really, my dear Prigg,” Locust would reply, “it seems interminable—come and dine with me.” So the gentle and innocent reader will at once perceive that there was great impatience on all sides to get this case ready for trial. Meanwhile it may not be uninteresting to describe shortly some of the many changes that had taken place in the few short months since the action commenced.
First it was clearly observable by the inhabitants of Yokelton that Mr. Prigg’s position had considerably improved. I say nothing of his new hat; that was a small matter, but not so his style of living—so great an advance had that made that it attracted the attention of the neighbours, who often remarked that Mr. Prigg seemed to be getting a large practice. He was often seen with his lady on a summer afternoon taking the air in a nice open carriage—hired, it is true, for the occasion. And everybody remarked how uncommonly ladylike Mrs. Prigg lay back in the vehicle, and how very gracefully she held her new æsthetic parasol. And what a proud moment it was for Bumpkin, when he saw this good and respectable gentleman pass with the ladylike creature beside him; and Mr. Bumpkin would say to his neighbours, lifting his hat at the same moment,
“That be my loryer, that air be!”
And then Mr. Prigg would gracefully raise his hat, and Mrs. Prigg would lie back perfectly motionless as
became a very languid lady of her exalted position. And when Mr. Prigg said to Mrs. Prigg, “My dear, that is our new client;” Mrs. Prigg would elevate her arched eyebrows and expand her delicate nostrils as she answered,—
“Really, my love, what a very vulgar-looking creechar!”
“Not nearly so vulgar as Locust’s client,” rejoined her husband. “You should see him.”
“Thank you, my love, it is quite enough to catch a glimpse of the superior person of the two.”
Mr. Prigg seemed to think it a qualifying circumstance that Snooks was a more vulgar-looking man than Bumpkin, whereas a moment’s consideration showed Mrs. Prigg how illogical that was. It is the intrinsic and personal value that one has to measure things by. This value could not be heightened by contrast. Mrs. Prigg’s curiosity, however, naturally led her to inquire who the other creechar was? As if she had never heard of Bumpkin v. Snooks, although she had actually got the case on four wheels and was riding in it at that very moment; as if in fact she was not practically all Bumpkin, as a silkworm may be said to be all mulberry leaves. As if she knew nothing of her husband’s business! Her ideas were not of this world. Give her a church to build, she’d harass people for subscriptions; or let it be a meeting to clothe the naked savage, Mrs. Prigg would be there. She knew nothing of clothing Bumpkin! But she did interest herself sufficiently in her husband’s conversation to ask, in answer to his reference to Locust’s disreputable client,