"Smack me!" echoed Buster, in trepidation. "Hif you kisses me, Mrs. Malone, Hi 'll scream."
"Kiss you, indeed!" snorted the landlady, scornfully.
"Don't you dare," warned Buster, getting behind a table for greater safety.
"Is your good-for-nothing master in?"
"Hi am not hacquainted with no such hindividual. Hif you means Mr. Moore, 'ee 's hout."
Mrs. Malone looked her disbelief, and pointed grimly to the boots, which Buster had dropped upon the table.
"Oh," said Buster, a trifle dashed, but rallying immediately, "these is souvenirs of the great poet. This goes to 'is Reverence the Harchbishop of Canterbury to be used as a snuff box, and this his to stand on the dressing-table of Mrs. Fitz'erbert 'erself. She will put 'er combings hinto it."
"Thot jezebel?" ejaculated the woman, with a sniff of disdain.
"But Mrs. Fitz'erbert does n't 'ail from Jersey," corrected Buster. "She 's from Wicklow, Hireland."
"She 's not," cried Mrs. Malone in a high dudgeon. "We don't raise her kind there. Only dacent people like me comes from the Vale of Avoca."