_Nutts._ Very partic’lar tender parish St Pancras’; tender as a maid’s face, to be sure: and certainly it does become the same parish to kick up such a hubbub about chucking a girl’s chin, when they don’t mind chucking a poor pauper wench into the “shed,” as they call it; and so--when she gets out--driving her to chuck herself into the canal, to be dragged out for a coroner’s jury to sit upon. It isn’t much, when they crowd gals and old women into the “shed,” and the “feather-room,” and places that fond o’ pork wouldn’t keep pigs in; that’s not much--oh no! Poor Mary Ann Jones may chuck herself into the canal and be drowned--she’s only a pauper, as the song says, “as nobody owns;” but to chuck a gal’s chin--ha! that’s something dreadful--and the vestry, as I’ve read somewhere, “feels it’s man’s first duty to fly to her succour.” _Tickle._ I hope Mr Pike will get over the shock; though I _have_ heard he’s so taken it to heart, the very thought o’ chucking the chin of a servant-gal--though where will you see prettier chins for a red ribbin sometimes?--that he’s gone ill, had his knocker tied up, and straw laid down afore the door. _Peabody._ And yet, I believe, it’s quite regular--a courtesy only expected upon a canvas. Why, there’s hardly a member of the House of Commons that doesn’t feel it his bounden duty to give a kiss for every vote. _Mrs Nutts._ And, as I say, many of ’em married men, no doubt? It really makes one shudder! _Peabody._ Now, I take it, the little attention is in a very fair proportion. If a candidate for the House of Commons kisses, surely a vestryman may “chuck.” _Mrs Nutts._ There, Mr Peabody; you’ve been a schoolmaster, I know, and it’s like you scholars; feelings are nothing in your hands. You take ’em and twist ’em and turn ’em into as many ways and shapes as the man that goes about with a sheet o’ writing-paper, and folds it into everything, from a coal-scuttle to a chest o’ drawers. Just like scholars, as they’re called: and how I _do_ pity their wives! _Slowgoe._ (_With paper._) Here’s another man writes that he can make gunpowder out of sawdust, another out of paper, another out of anything. _Mrs Nutts._ I read that about the sawdust myself, and for that reason I never again grate a nutmeg with my own hands; for the world’s taken such a turn, who now can say what will happen? As I said to Mrs Biggleswade over the way, it’s my opinion, since they can find gunpowder in a cotton gown, and, in fact, gunpowder in everything, why, we mightn’t know one minute from the t’other when the whole world will be blown up! _Tickle._ And that’s your opinion, Mrs Nutts. _Mrs Nutts._ It just is; and I was thinkin’ of it only yesterday, just as the tax-gatherer called for the rates. And so--although I’d the money ready in a cup in the cupboard--so being in the dumps, not knowing how long the world would last, I just thought it safest to tell the man to call again.