My blowing up! Odds bodikins and pins! I shall never be able to contain myself! Where’s the money to pay the rent, you oaf? RIP. I don’t know.—Do you? DAME. You’ll go to prison, and that’ll be the end on’t. RIP. Come, no more quarrelling to-night. [We’ll](54) see about de rent money to-morrow morning. DAME. To-morrow! it’s always to-morrow with you. So, Alice, you are sitting and idling as usual, just like your brother, a precious pair of soft pates. RIP. Soft [pate](55)—pretty hard I guess, or it would have been [fructured](56) long since and dat’s a fact. DAME. And now, Alice, come with me that I may satisfy myself how you have disposed of the children, for in these matters you are just such a crawler as that vagrum there, [_Is retiring._] that terrapin! RIP. Terrapin! Ah, dame, I leaves you to go the whole hog, but hark’ee, my lovey, before you go, won’t you return de leetle bottle which you manage to get from me [last night]?(57) DAME. Odds bodikins, and pins! A man already drunk, and asking for more liquor! You sha’n’t have a drop, you sot, that you shall not. The bottle indeed! not you, eh! faith! [_Exit with_ ALICE. RIP. [Tunder](58) take me if I don’t [think](59) but what she has [finished](60) it herself, and dat’s de fact. My nose always sniffs like a terrier’s; ’tis in de cupboard, her Hollands;—so, here goes to nibble. _Music_.—RIP _opens the closet door cautiously, and is rummaging for a bottle, when he treads on_ KNICKERBOCKER, _who roars out lustily_. RIP, _in his sudden alarm, upsets the [porcelain and glass];_(_61_)_ and, falling, rolls into the middle of the chamber, quaking in every limb, and vociferating loudly._ RIP. Help! murder! fire! thieves! KNICKERBOCKER, [_in the interim_](62), _darts out of the closet, and, [beyond the consciousness of future proceeding]_(_63_)_, throws himself into the arm-chair_.—ALICE, _entering hastily, throws a cloak over him, which hides him from observation_.—DAME _enters, alarmed._ DAME. Odds bodikins and pins! what’s the matter, now? RIP. [_Raising his head cautiously._] Matter, indeed! [the devil’s](64) in the cupboard! Oh, la! I’ll be swammed. DAME. In the cupboard!—[_Going there, sees china broken; squalling._]—All my fine porcelain destroyed! monster! vile, rapacious monster! A devil, indeed, has been in the cupboard, and that’s you. The china, presented to me by my grand relations, which I set such store on, smashed into a thousand pieces; ’tis too much for my weak nerves. I shall swoon! I shall faint! [_She sinks in the arm-chair, but immediately starts up, and, squalling, falls into _RIP’S _arms._—KNICKERBOCKER _regains the closet, unobserved by all, save_ ALICE. DAME. Heaven have mercy on us! there was somebody in the chair! somebody in the chair! RIP. Phoo! there’s nothing in de chair, save your old cloak, [_Tossing it aside._] dat’s all. DAME.