The String of Pearls; or, The Barber of Fleet Street — page 76: what you’re looking at

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

ee eae PR ne ENN TAINS a AC ARE tt en erty a 4 68 THE STRING OF PEARLS, fat shall expect to see you, and, above all, be sure you let me know if that canting parson, Lupin, comes any more to your house.” “T will, Ben.” Ah, do ; ‘a 1’ll give him another lesson if he should, and I tell you how 1’ll doit. Ill get a free admission to the wild beustesses in the Tower, and when he — comes to see ’em, for them ’ere sort of fellows always goes everywhere they can go | for nothing, 1’ll just manage to pop him into a cage along of some of the most — cantankerous creatures as we have.” ne a “ But would not that be daxgerous ?” Sn i ak | . ‘Oh dear no! we has a laughing hyena as would frichten him out of his wits; | but I don’t think as he’d bite him much, do you know. He’s as playful as a kitten, | and very fond of standing on his head.” “Well, then, Ben, I haye, of course, no objection, although I do think that the | lesson you have already given to the reverend gentleman will and ought to be fully sufficient for all purposes, and I don’t expect we shall see him again.” “ But how does Mrs. O. behave to you?” asked Ben. ‘Well, Ben, I don’t think there’s much difference; sometimes she’s a little | | civil, and sometimes she ain’t; it’s just as she takes it into her head.” “Ah! that all comes of marrying.” j : “‘T have often wondered, though, Ben, that you never married.” | Ben gave a chuckle as he replied— “Have you though, really? Well, Cousin Oakley, I don’t mind telling you, | - but the real fact is, once I was very near being served out in that sort of way. “Indeed!” “Yes, T’ll tell you how it was; there was a girl called Angelina Day, and a nice-looking enough creature she was as you’d wish to see, ard didn’t seem as if she’d got any claws at all; leastways she kept them in, like a cat at meal | — times.” “Upon my word, Ben, you have a great knowledge of the world.” *‘T believe you, I have! Haven't I been brought up among the wild beasts in the Tower all my life? That’s the place to get a knowledge of the world in, my | boy. I ought to know a thing or two, and in course I does.” “Well, but how was it, Ben, that you did not marry this Angelina you _ speak of ?” | Yl) tell you; she thought she had me as safe as a hare in a trap, and she was _ - as amiable asa lump of cotton. You'd have thought, to look at her, that she did nothing but smile; and, to hear her, that she said nothing but nice, mild, | _ pleasant things, and [ really began to think as I had found out the proper sort of | ~ animal.” _ © But you were mistaken ?”’ “T beueve you, I was. One day ’d been there to see her, I mean, at her _ father’s house, and she’d been as amiable as she could be; I got up to go away, _ with a determination that the next time I got there I would ask her to say yes, _ and when I had got a little way out of the garden of the house where they lived | —it was out of town some distance—TI found I had teft my little walking-cane | behind me, so I goes back to get it, and when I got into the garden I heard.a | / voice.” “Whose voice ?”” “Why Angelina’s, to be sure; she was speaking to a poor little dab of a servant they had; and oh, my eye! how she did rap out, to be sure! Such a speech as J never heard in all my life. She went on a matter of ten minutes without stop- ititete ) “st | ie at + {yon 10 [shall | Yon pis + youl ‘i mente apatite ve a eS oe i hension ¢ tea, be ping, and every other word was some ill name or another; and her voice—oh gracious ! it was like a bundle of wire all of a tangle—it was.” | “And what did you do, then, upon making such a discovery as that in so yer | odd and unexpected a manner ?”’ : “Do! What do you suppose I did ?” “T really cannot say, as you are rather an eccentric fellow.” BY “Well thea, Pll tell you. I went up to the house, and just popped in my head, _ Sn a Sl et a a ee cc os SSE od — comicbooks.com | rood he eo Bas | mt the b | "Yes Lng hail “Phila Fah Ts aie ; | Tg ; | Tem - Toph ~ her cout that be body i ation or Teptesent sae o Ben te ile | tea vie