"So-so, Mrs. Mann," replied the beadle. "A porochial life is not a bed of roses, Mrs. Mann."
"Ah, that it isn't indeed, Mr. Bumble," rejoined the lady. And all the infant paupers might have chorused the rejoinder with great propriety if they had heard it.
"A porochial life, ma'am," continued Mr. Bumble, striking the table with his cane, "is a life of worry, and vexation, and hardihood; but all public characters, as I may say, must suffer prosecution."
Mrs. Mann, not very well knowing what the beadle meant, raised her hands with a look of sympathy, and sighed.
"Ah! You may well sigh, Mrs. Mann!" said the beadle.
Finding she had done right, Mrs. Mann sighed again, evidently to the satisfaction of the public character, who, repressing a complacent smile by looking sternly at his cocked hat, said,
"Mrs. Mann, I am a going to London."
"Lauk, Mr. Bumble!" said Mrs. Mann, starting back.
"To London, ma'am," resumed the inflexible beadle, "by coach; I, and two paupers, Mrs. Mann. A legal action is coming on about a settlement, and the board has appointed me—me, Mrs. Mann—to depose to the matter before the quarter-sessions at Clerkinwell; and I very much question," added Mr. Bumble, drawing himself up, "whether the Clerkinwell Sessions will not find themselves in the wrong box before they have done with me."
"Oh! you mustn't be too hard upon them, sir," said Mrs. Mann coaxingly.