Household Words, No. 14, June 29, 1850 : $b A weekly journal
General
Household Words, No. 14, June 29, 1850 : $b A weekly journal
English literature -- Periodicals
that this was not the way to preserve for the “Hundredth” the name of a
crack corps, and that the best example for those in authority is Mercy.
With minds buoyant and refreshed by the discharge of the judicial
functions, for which they were in every respect so admirably qualified,
Ensign Spoonbill and his companions, giving themselves leave of absence
from the afternoon parade, and having resumed their favourite “mufty,”
repaired to an obscure den in a stable-yard at the back of the Blue
Boar—a low public house in the filthiest quarter of the town—which Mr.
Joseph Baggs made his head-quarters, and there, for a couple of hours,
solaced themselves with the agreeable exhibition of the contest between
the badger and the dog Juno, which terminated by the latter being bitten
through both her fore-paws, and nearly losing one of her eyes; though,
as Lieutenant Wadding exultingly observed, “she was a deuced deal too
game to give over for such trifles as those.” The unhappy badger, that
only fought in self-defence, was accordingly “dror’d,” as Mr. Baggs
reluctantly admitted, adding, however, that she was “nuffin much the
wuss,” which was more than could be said of the officers of the
“Hundredth” who had enjoyed the spectacle.
This amusement ended, which had so far a military character that it
familiarised the spectator with violence and bloodshed, though in an
unworthy and contemptible degree, badgers and dogs, not men, being their
subject, the young gentlemen adjourned to the High Street, to loiter
away half an hour at the shop of Messrs. Moses, Lazarus and Son, whose
religious observances and daily occupations were made their jest, while
they ran in debt to the people from whom they afterwards expected
consideration and forbearance. But not wholly did they kill their time
there. The pretty pastry-cook, an innocent, retiring girl, but compelled
to serve in the shop, came in for her share of their half-admiring and
all-insolent persecutions, and when their slang and sentiment were alike
exhausted, they dawdled back again to barracks, to dress for the fifth
time for mess.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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