TYING the legs of the birds together with a piece of string, Spriggs proudly carried them along, dangling at his fingers' ends.
After tramping for a long mile, the friends at length discovered, what they termed, an house of "hentertainment."
Entering a parlour, with a clean, sanded floor, (prettily herring-boned, as the housemaids technically phrase it,) furnished with red curtains, half a dozen beech chairs, three cast-iron spittoons, and a beer-bleached mahogany table,—Spriggs tugged at the bell. The host, with a rotund, smiling face, his nose, like Bardolph's, blazing with fiery meteors, and a short, white apron, concealing his unmentionables, quickly answered the tintinabulary summons.
"Landlord," said Spriggs, who had seated himself in a chair, while Mr. Richard was adjusting his starched collar at the window;—"Landlord! ve should like to have this 'ere game dressed."
The Landlord eyed the 'game' through his spectacles, and smiled.
"Roasted, or biled, Sir?" demanded he.
"Biled?—no:—roasted, to be sure!" replied Spriggs, amazed at his pretended obtuseness: "and, I say, landlord, you can let us have plenty o' nice wedgetables."
"Greens?" said the host;—but whether alluding to the verdant character of his guests, or merely making a polite inquiry as to the article they desired, it was impossible, from his tone and manner, to divine.
"Greens!" echoed Spriggs, indignantly; "no:—peas and 'taters."