“The treasury, my dear?” said the wife, still at fault; “how could you get oysters from the treasury?”
“Oysters!” exclaimed O'Grady, whose turn it was now to wonder, “who talks of oysters?”
“My dear, I thought you said you'd eat six or seven hundred of oysters!”
“Pooh! pooh! woman; it is of the pension I'm talking—six or seven hundred pounds—pounds—cash—per annum; now I suppose you'll put on my cravat. I think a man may be allowed to eat his supper who expects six hundred a year.”
A great many people besides O'Grady order suppers, and dinners too, on the expectation of less than six hundred a year. Perhaps there is no more active agent for sending people into the Insolvent Court than the aforesaid “expectation.”
O'Grady went down-stairs, and was heartily welcomed by Scatterbrain on his re-appearance from his sick-room; but Mrs. O'Grady suggested that, for fear any excess would send him back there for a longer time, a very moderate indulgence at the table should suffice. She begged the honourable member to back her argument, which he did; and O'Grady promised temperance, but begged the immediate appearance of the oysters, for he experienced that eager desire which delicate health so often prompts for some particular food.
Andy was laying the table at the time, and was ordered to expedite matters as much as possible.
“Yis, ma'am.”
“You're sure the oysters are all good, Andy?”
“Sartin, ma'am.”