"How! I do not understand you!"
"A dad in the haffits."
Here a benevolent gentleman, with a bald head and spectacles, was kind enough to act as interpreter, and explained to the scientific Anglican the meaning of the minatory term.
"Ha! our young friend is becoming a little restive. We must alter his frame of mind. Observe, ladies and gentlemen, I shall now touch the organ of Benevolence."
With an alacrity which utterly dumbfoundered us, the young hope of the Crosscauseway now sprung to his feet. His hands were precipitately plunged into the inmost recesses of his corduroys.
"Puir man! puir man!" he exclaimed with a deep expression of sympathy, "ye're looking far frae weel! Ay, ay! a wife and saxteen weans at hame, and you just oot o' the hospital!—Hech-how! but this is a weary warld. Hae—it's no muckle I can gie ye, but tak it a'—tak it a'!"
So saying, he drew forth from his pockets a miscellaneous handful of slate-pencil, twine, stucco-bowls, and, if we mistake not, gib—a condiment much prized by the rising generation of the metropolis—all of which he deposited, as from a cornucopia, at the feet of the delighted lecturer.
A loud hum of admiration arose from the back-benches. Charity is a popular virtue, as you may learn at the theatre, from the tumultuous applause of the gallery whenever the hero of the melodrama chucks a purse at the head of some unfortunate starveling. Two old ladies in our neighbourhood began to whimper; and one of them publicly expressed her intention of rewarding with half-a-crown the good intentions of the munificent Lazarillo, so soon as the lecture was over. This seemed to inspire him with a fresh accession of benevolence; for, the organ being still excited, he made another desperate attempt, and this time fished up a brass button.
"Let us now," said the magician, "excite the counter organ of Secretiveness; and, in order to give this experiment its full effect, I shall also irritate the kindred organs of Acquisitiveness and Caution."
To our great disgust, Lazarillo instantly threw off the character of Howard, and appeared in that of David Haggart. He was evidently mentally prowling with an associate in the vicinity of a stall bedecked with tempting viands, irresistible to the inner Adam of the boy.