"Well, Mrs. Shelfer, I want to hear the end of it."
"Just what I say, Miss. Yes, yes, no time to spare, and the pudding
boiling. So I says, quite sharp, ’What name, my good sir, and will you
leave a message? Miss Vaughan is out of town.’ ’Wull,’ says he, just
as I tell you, Miss, ’ony plase you say, ma’am, as Jan Uxtable, and
Beany Dawe, and the two beggest of the chillers has doed theirselves the
honour of coming to lave their dooty.’ Then the little girl look up and
she flash her ribbons and say, ’Mr. Huxtable, if you please, ma’am, and
Mr. Ebenezer Dawe, and Miss Huxtable, and Master John, has called.’
’Hadn’t you better write it down, Miss?’ says I, as innocent as
possible. ’Do you suppose I can’t then?’ says she, with such a spitting
out of her eyes, and she swinging a new parry sole. ’Just give me a
sheet of papper, if you keep such a thing in the house.’ ’Plase to
excuse the little wanch, ma’am,’ says the big man, quite humble, ’us
can’t hardly make head nor tail of her, since her come to this here
Lunnon. If I had only knowed it I’d have had her mother along of me,
that I would ees fai, and the coo be her own midwaife. But ony plase
you say Jan Uxtable come if they count it dacent hereaway. Threescore
acres and five, ma’am, without reckon the Cleeve, and no man have a
call, to my mind, to christen himself "Mister" on less than a hundred
acres, in Lunnon or out of it.’ ’Very well, sir,’ I says, for I took to
the big man somehow, ’I will deliver your message. Miss Vaughan only
went from here of middle day on Wednesday.’ ’And tell her please, if
she do come back,’ says spirity Miss Parrysole, with the tears in her
great blue eyes, ’that Sally Huxtable leave her very best love and duty,
and hope so much Miss Clara will come to see the great wrestling
to-morrow, twelve o’clock, and be early. And they be betting now two to
one on the other man, ma’am. But he have no chance, no more than Tim
Badcock with father.’ ’I be much afeared, ma’am,’ says the deep-voiced
man, as soft as any bell, ’I be afeared our Sally will be begger by a
lanyard nor ever her daddy or her mammy was. But likely it be all for
the best.’ And with that all four of them crooked their legs to me most
polite, and went on round the corner; and after them went a score of
boys, that seemed to follow them everywhere. The boys knew all about
it, and so did I at last, that it was the great champion wrestling, that
is to be to-morrow. Charley have been mad about it going on now two
months. And can you please to tell him, Miss, which way to lay his
money?"
"To be sure, I can. Let him take every offer of two to one against the
Devonshire champion; and if he loses I will make it good to him, upon
condition that he gives you everything he wins. Now please to let me
have a cup of strong tea."
Having thus got rid of my most talkative friend, and Mrs. Fletcher
having started off to buy something, I had time to think a little.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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