_Nutts._ Tell you ’tis. Was you never on a jury? La! bless you, when one of the gen’lemen of the long robe, as they call ’em--one of the conjurors in horse-hair--get hold of a fib, or a flaw, or a something to bring a blush into the face of Common-sense, and so put her out of court at once--doesn’t he enjoy it? Doesn’t he relish the fiction, as it’s called, as if it was his first “Goody Two Shoes”? He relishes it; all the bar--’xcept, perhaps, the conjuror against him--relishes it, and the judge himself. Oh! haven’t I seen him with the wrinkles about his eyes like the map of England; haven’t I seen him relish it too, for all the world like an old sporting dog that had given up hunting himself, but still did so love the smell of the game! _Tickle._ I tell you what it is, Nutts, I feel my blood a-gettin’ vinegar all the while I hear you. I feel a-changing from a man to a cruet; and I won’t have it. You are so sour, you’d pickle salmon to look at it. Nosebag, tell us something pleasant. What have they done at the playhouse this week? _Nosebag._ Why, there’s been Miss Faucit at the Hayma’ket, but only for one night. Your very great players now, they’re like the new aloe at the Colossyum; they only blossom once in a hundred years, or somethin’ of that sort. London’s gettin’ low for ’em, I s’pose. I have heard--though I know nothin’ about what you call the currency--I have heard that there isn’t, for any long time, ready gold enough in the country to pay ’em. _Tickle._ Couldn’t they take ’Chequer bills? _Nosebag._ Why, I believe they was offered to a singer last week; but he wouldn’t have ’em, ’cause he’d no faith in the Government. _Tickle._ Well, and how did the young lady go off? _Nosebag._ Never go to a benefit, for fear I should be taken for a private friend of the actors. But I’m told the--the--what is it?--the _fibula_ was another tremendous hit. _Limpy._ (_Rising._) That will do, Mr Nutts. What’s the _fibular_? _Nosebag._ Why, a emerald buckle that the Irish House of Commons give to Miss Faucit last year for playing in _Antigony_. It was very well to put it in the playbill, ’cause of course it drew so many folks who’d never seen a buckle. Nevertheless, if Mr Webster--and I don’t mean to say anything against Mr Webster, not by no means--nevertheless, if he’d known his own interest he would have had five hundred posters with a bold woodcut of that _fibula_. And I should have stuck ’em. _Limpy._ And you didn’t go to see it? _Nosebag._ No; but I shall go next week, if I never go agin. For they do say that Mrs Humby--dear cretur!--is goin’ to appear in a thimble presented to her by the ladies’-maids of London. And if anybody ever deserved a bit of plate, Mrs Humby deserves that thimble.