'What's that obelisk?' said I.
His head came back to its bearings, and he answered: 'What's what?'
'That thing in granite, yonder; that tall stone spike. What is it?'
'Can yer read?'
'Better than you, I expect,' I answered.
'Then why don't you go and find out for yourself?' said he, uttering a small, hideous laugh.
'I rather fancy,' said I, 'that that spike was erected to commemorate the landing of George IV. He was kind enough to condescend to land at Ramsgate. Wasn't that good of him, Tommy? Blown here, maybe, vomiting, to the pier-head, and rejoicing, under his waistcoats, to get ashore anywhere and anyhow. And the snobs of Ramsgate go to the expense of erecting that unwholesome and shocking memorial of so abject a trifle as the landing of a fat immoral man at this port on his way to London. Why don't you, and the like of you, level it,—knock the blamed thing into blocks of stone, and build a house with them for a good man to live in?
His eyes had come to the surface; they were running harder than ever. He was in a rage.
'Look here,' said he; 'I don't know who y'are, but don't yer like that there pillar?'
'No,' I answered.