Midnight arrived. Miss Grampus was looking through the window, and contrasting the gleaming gas which shone upon the ruby lobsters, with the calm moon which lightened up the Poultry, and threw a halo round the Royal Exchange. She was lost in maiden meditation, when her eye fell upon a pane of glass in her own window: squeezed against this, flat and white, was the nose of a man!—that man was Roderick Dandolo! He seemed to be gazing at the lobsters more intensely than at Adeliza; he had his hands in his pockets, and was whistling Jim Crow.[16]
Miss Grampus felt sick with joy; she staggered to the counter, and almost fainted. The Professor concluded his melody, and entered at once into the shop. He pretended to have no knowledge of Miss Grampus, but aborded the two ladies with easy elegance and irresistible good-humour.
"Good evening, ma'am," said he, bowing profoundly to the elder lady. "What a precious hot evening, to be sure!—hot, ma'am, and hungry, as they say. I could not resist them lobsters, 'specially when I saw the lady behind 'em."
At this gallant speech Mrs. Grampus blushed, or looked as if she would blush, and said,
"Law, sir!"
"Law, indeed, ma'am," playfully continued the Professor; "you're a precious deal better than law,—you're divinity, ma'am; and this, I presume, is your sister?"
He pointed to Adeliza as he spoke, who, pale and mute, stood fainting against a heap of ginger-beer bottles. The old lady was quite won by this stale compliment.
"My daughter, sir," she said. "Addly, lay a cloth for the gentleman. Do you take hoysters, sir, hor lobsters? Both is very fine."
"Why, ma'am," said he, "to say truth, I have come forty miles since dinner, and don't care if I have a little of both. I'll begin, if you please, with that there, (Lord bless its claws, they're as red as your lips!) and we'll astonish a few of the natives afterwards, by your leave."