int, that he should stop at Mrs. Bardell's door;
which the heavy gentleman, in direct opposition to, and defiance of, the
vixenish ladies, contended was a green door and not a yellow one.

'Stop at the house with a green door, driver,' said the heavy gentleman.

'Oh! You perwerse creetur!' exclaimed one of the vixenish ladies. 'Drive
to the 'ouse with the yellow door, cabmin.'

Upon this the cabman, who in a sudden effort to pull up at the house
with the green door, had pulled the horse up so high that he nearly
pulled him backward into the cabriolet, let the animal's fore-legs down
to the ground again, and paused.

'Now vere am I to pull up?' inquired the driver. 'Settle it among
yourselves. All I ask is, vere?'

Here the contest was renewed with increased violence; and the horse
being troubled with a fly on his nose, the cabman humanely employed
his leisure in lashing him about on the head, on the counter-irritation
principle.

'Most wotes carries the day!' said one of the vixenish ladies at length.
'The 'ouse with the yellow door, cabman.'

But after the cabriolet had dashed up, in splendid style, to the
house with the yellow door, 'making,' as one of the vixenish ladies
triumphantly said, 'acterrally more noise than if one had come in one's
own carriage,' and after the driver had dismounted to assist the ladies
in getting out, the small round head of Master Thomas Bardell was thrust
out of the one-pair window of a house with a red door, a few numbers
off.

'Aggrawatin' thing!' said the vixenish lady last-mentioned, darting a
withering glance at the heavy gentleman.

'My dear, it's not my fault,' said the gentleman.

'Don't talk to me, you creetur, don't,' retorted the lady. 'The house
with the red door, cabmin. Oh! If ever a woman was troubled with a
ruffinly creetur, that takes a pride and a pleasure in disgracing his
wife on every possible occasion afore strangers, I am that woman!'

'You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Raddle,' said the other little
woman, who was no other than Mrs. Cluppins. 'What have I been a-doing
of?' asked Mr. Raddle.

'Don't talk to me, don't, you brute, for fear I should be perwoked to
forgit my sect and strike you!' said Mrs. Raddle.

While this dialogue was going on, the driver was most ignominiously
leading the horse, by the bridle, up to the house with the red door,
which Master Bardell had already opened. Here was a mean and low way of
arriving at a friend's house! N