Mr. Clodpole, whose name was really Bullock, stated that his wages amounted to “three shillings and a puddn.”
“Three shillings and a puddn!—monstrous!—and for this you toil like a galley-slave, as I have seen them in Turkey and America,—ay, gentlemen, and in the country of Prester John! You shiver out of bed on icy winter mornings, to break the ice for Ball and Dapple to drink.”
“Yes, indeed,” said the person addressed, who seemed astounded at the extent of the Corporal's information.
“Or you clean pigsty, and take dung down to meadow; or you act watchdog and tend sheep; or you sweep a scythe over a great field of grass; and when the sun has scorched the eyes out of your head, and sweated the flesh off your bones, and well-nigh fried the soul out of your body, you go home, to what?—three shillings a week and a puddn! Do you get pudding every day?”
“No; only Sundays.”
“Do you get money enough?”
“No, sure.”
“Do you get beer enough?”
“Oh no, NEVER!” said Mr. Bullock quite resolutely.
“Worthy Clodpole, give us thy hand: it shall have beer enough this day, or my name's not Corporal Brock. Here's the money, boy! there are twenty pieces in this purse: and how do you think I got 'em? and how do you think I shall get others when these are gone?—by serving Her Sacred Majesty, to be sure: long life to her, and down with the French King!”