The Steam-Packet: A Tale of the River and the Ocean — page 75: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

50 THE STEAM PACKET. of Galway, where he had lived until a mature age, and whence he had ‘ accompanied his master in the dignified situation of valet up the Rhine as far as Frankfort. On his return, passing through London, the success of a countryman who, giving himself out as a Polish noble- man, had married a rich cheesemonger’s daughter, induced Patrick O’Sullivan to try his luck in the matrimonial lottery; and having picked up a smattering of German on the Rhine, he concluded it would do quite as well as Polish. His dreadful brogue he passed off for a foreign accent, and interlarded his discourse pretty plentifully with the little German he knew; but he not unfrequently drew upon his imagination for the invention of words and phrases not to be found in any dictionary at all. He described the revolution of the Poles from imagination, showed a cut upon his forehead inflicted by a hookem-snivey at some Irish fair-fight as the thrust of a Cossack lance, and, in fact, worked his way into the good graces of a wealthy ironmonger’s daughter. She was sentimentally inclined, and one eve- ning asked him some question about the Castle Crag of Drachenfels. — ‘Musha the schonste gable ind of an ould house that ever ye set yer zwei augen on, said he. I heard him—burst out laughing— and thus led to his detection.” “ And I will do the same by this Pentonville,” cried Tiptile. Meantime conversation was rife amongst the other Luminaries. ‘There ’s the warehouse where I first learnt my business,” said Mr. Shiffley, who was a wealthy corn-factor, to Mr. Jeremiah Crumplings. ‘“* There’s the crane, down the rope of which I’ve often swung when a boy; and there’s the window—that one without any glass in it—where Miss Peggy Stubbs—Mrs. Shiffley that now is—was standing, when I came behind her, caught her round the waist, and—what do you think ?”’ ‘“‘ Kissed her,” said Mr. Crumplings. “* No—popped the question,” replied Mr. Shiffley ; ‘“‘ and then what do you think took place ?”’ | ‘* She accepted you?” guessed Mr. Crumplings. ‘* No—not then; but ‘Tim Dobson, the overseer, came behind me, and welted me with a cane till I couldn’t stand. Ah!” added Mr. Shiffley, with a sigh, ‘these are pleasing reminiscences—very pleasing !”” “‘ So they are,” coincided Mr. Crumplings. In another part of the vessel a third group of Luminaries was con- versing. | “‘ There’s the school, Nibkins,” said Mr. Deputy Higgins (of Port- soken), pointing, as he spoke, to a low building upon the left bank of the river, ‘‘ where you and I passed our boyish days. Ah! how times ] Gomicbooks. co