Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 305: what you’re looking at

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

288 THE COURT OF LONDON murmur. All these little circumstances rendered him a special favourite with Mrs. Piggleberry — as indeed he ought to have been; and the consequence was that she never felt wearied of chasis to all her friends and acquaint- ances the praises of Mr. Meavles. But, then, the place suited Tim uncommonly well; and, although he knew that he was robbed through thick and thin, even to the recognition of his very shirts upon the person of his landlady’s brother, who was in poor circum- stances and kept a small shop in the neighbourhood, yet he consoled himself with the reflection that he should be plundered to an equal extent in any other lodgings, with- out perhaps enjoying the same freedom from impertinent curiosity and prying observation as he experienced beneath the roof of Mrs. Piggleberry. For this good creature never appeared to see or hear anything that she ought not. Though Lady Letitia was a frequent visitor at Tim’s apart- ments, the discreet old woman pretended to be quite ignorant of her sex, and invariably announced her as Mr. Lade; and if he invited to his lodgings any ladies who were not dressed in male attire, Mrs. Piggleberry would never suffer it to appear that she suspected their equivocal character, but spoke of them as “ Mr. Meagles’s charming cousins.”’ Moreover, when Tim had a party of gentlemen to sup with him, and when he said, next morning, ‘‘ My dear Mrs. Piggle- berry, [ am afraid we kicked up a frightful row all last night,” she would assume an air of amazement, and exclaim, ‘““Why! deary me, sir, | was only observing a minit ago to the servint-gal that the house never was so quiet!’’ And yet perhaps the uproarious songs, peals of laughter, and insane shoutings had brought the watch thundering at the door half a dozen times between midnight and sunrise. We have already hinted that Meagles had a page or foot- boy; and we must pause for a few moments to state that this precocious youth of fourteen was one of the sharpest, cleverest, and most knowing young rascals in the metropolis. He was short, slim, genteel, and good-looking; his livery became him admirably, and, whatever his real name might have been, he was invariably called by the pseudonym of “Wasp.” Active, faithful, mischievous, and discreet, he was invaluable to Meagles, a plague to the servant-girl, a little devil in the eyes of Mrs. Piggleberry, who, however, EORNIE COOKS (E(0) m