“Not a shilling, by sacred heaven!—not a shilling!” yelled out Pogson. “After the supper I ’ad such an ’eadach’, I couldn’t do anything but fall asleep on the sofa.”
“You ’ad such an ’eadach’, sir,” says British, sternly, who piques himself on his grammar and pronunciation, and scorns a cockney.
“Such a H-eadache, sir,” replied Pogson, with much meekness.
“The unfortunate man is brought home at two o’clock, as tipsy as possible, dragged up stairs, senseless, to bed, and, on waking, receives a visit from his entertainer of the night before—a lord’s son, Major, a tip-top fellow,—who brings a couple of bills that my friend Pogson is said to have signed.”
“Well, my dear fellow, the thing’s quite simple,—he must pay them.”
“I can’t pay them.”
“He can’t pay them,” said we both in a breath: “Pogson is a commercial traveller, with thirty shillings a week, and how the deuce is he to pay five hundred pounds?”
“A bagman, sir! and what right has a bagman to gamble? Gentlemen gamble, sir; tradesmen, sir, have no business with the amusements of the gentry. What business had you with barons and lords’ sons, sir?—serve you right, sir.”
“Sir,” says Pogson, with some dignity, “merit, and not birth, is the criterion of a man: I despise an hereditary aristocracy, and admire only Nature’s gentlemen. For my part, I think that a British merch—”
“Hold your tongue, sir,” bounced out the Major, “and don’t lecture me; don’t come to me, sir, with your slang about Nature’s gentlemen—Nature’s tomfools, sir! Did Nature open a cash account for you at a banker’s, sir? Did Nature give you an education, sir? What do you mean by competing with people to whom Nature has given all these things? Stick to your bags, Mr. Pogson, and your bagmen, and leave barons and their like to their own ways.”