Arter he had been mad for a week—in a state of mind, in short, in which, if I had let him sit on the organ for only two minutes, I believe he would have bust—but we kept the organ from him—Mr. Chops come round and behaved liberal and beautiful to all.
He then sent for a young man he knowed, as had a wery genteel appearance and was a Bonnet at a gaming-booth (most respectable brought up, father havin' been imminent in the livery-stable line, but unfortunate in a commercial crisis through paintin' a old gray, ginger-bay, and sellin' him with a pedigree), and Mr. Chops said this to Bonnet, who said his name was Normandy, which it wasn't:
"Normandy, I'm going into society. Will you go with me?"
Says Normandy: "Do I understand you, Mr. Chops, to hintimate that the 'ole of the expenses of that move will be borne by yourself?"
"Correct," says Mr. Chops. "And you shall have a princely allowance too."
The Bonnet lifted Mr. Chops upon a chair to shake hands with him, and replied in poetry, his eyes seemingly full of tears:
My boat is on the shore,
And my bark is on the sea,
And I do not ask for more,
But I'll go—along with thee.
They went into society, in a chaise and four grays, with silk jackets. They took lodgings in Pall Mall, London, and they blazed away.
In consequence of a note that was brought to Bartlemy Fair in the autumn of next year by a servant, most wonderful got up in milk-white cords and tops, I cleaned myself and went to Pall Mall, one evening app'inted. The gentlemen was at their wine arter dinner, and Mr. Chops's eyes was more fixed in that Ed of his than I thought good for him.
There was three of 'em (in company, I mean), and I knowed the third well. When last met, he had on a white Roman shirt, and a bishop's miter covered with leopard-skin, and played the clarionet all wrong, in a band, at a wild-beast show.