"Ask Mamma"; or, The Richest Commoner In EnglandSurtees, Robert Smith
General
"Ask Mamma"; or, The Richest Commoner In England
Surtees, Robert Smith
England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; Fox hunting -- Fiction
dropped in at the sale of the late Squire Trefoil’s effects, who
had given some such order, and, under pretence of buying a
shower-bath, succeeded in getting a capital large coach on its
first wheels for ten pounds,—scarcely the value of the pole.
As a contrast to Henerey Brown and Co.‘s business-like offer for
the farm, and in illustration of the difference between buying
and selling, we append the verbose estimate of this ponderous
affair. Thus it runs—
HENRY TREFOIL, ESQ.
To CHALKER AND CHARGER COACHMAKERS, BY APPOINTMENT, TO THE
EMPEROR OF CHINA, Emperor of Morocco, the King of Oude, the King
of the Cannibal Islands, &c., &c., &c., &c.
_Long Acre, London_.
(Followed by all the crowns, arms, orders, flourish, and flannel,
peculiar to aristocratic tradesmen.)
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Three hundred and ninety pounds! And to think that the whole
should come to be sold for ten sovereigns. Oh, what a falling off
was there, my coachmakers! Surely the King of the Cannibal
Islands could never afford to pay such prices as those! Verily,
Sir Robert Peel was right when he said that there was no class of
tradespeople whose bills wanted reforming so much as coachmakers.
What ridiculous price they make wood and iron assume, and what
absurd offers they make when you go to them to sell!
CHAPTER XVI. THE MAJOR’S MENAGE.
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AND first about the “haryers!”
“Five-and-thirty years master of haryers without a subscription!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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