“Hold your tongue; I see, though young, ye’r a hardened offender. Have ye no conscience,1 man? Oh, murder! to try and sware away the life of an innicint gintleman!—Is your mother livin’?”
“No,” replied Mr. Sniggs, not exactly comprehending the drift of Mr. Bradley’s examination.
“Have you sister, or brother?”
“Nather,” returned the quondam accuser; but now, as it would appear, by some freak of fortune transmuted into the accused.
“Have ye no relashins, good nor bad, ye unfortunit divil?”
“I have,” replied the artist, “a third cousin, a well-behaved girl she is, and greatly respected by her mistress, who’s married to a tanner in the Liberty.”
“Well,” said Peter graciously, “on account of that well-behaved girl, your third cousin, I’ll show mercy to you this time. Turn him out. Go home and repent, Sniggs: God forgive ye! that’s all I have to say. Be off wid ye.”
“Arrah, blur and nouns!” ejaculated the disappointed tailor, “and is that all the satisfaction I’m to get for having my ear slit like a swallow’s tail?”
“Out with him, I say. Wait till I ketch ye here agen, Sniggs. Be this book,” (and Peter flourished the empty pewter-pot) “that well-behaved girl, your third cousin that lives wid the tanner, won’t get you off the second time. I wish the drink was come. I’m grately fatigued givin’ good advice—it always laves me dry as a whistle. But what’s to be done wid the chap in the corner?”
“There’s no use spakin’ to him now,” returned a watchman; “he’s blind drunk, and fast asleep into the bargain.”