aticks, I am Extra Double Darned with a Nip and Frizzle to the
innermostest grit! Wheerfur--Theer!--I la'af! I Dew, ma'arm. I la'af!"
And so he went, stamping and shaking his sides, along the platform all
the way to his own compartment.
I think it was her standing up agin the Foreigner, as giv' Our Missis the
idea of going over to France, and droring a comparison betwixt
Refreshmenting as followed among the frog-eaters, and Refreshmenting as
triumphant in the Isle of the Brave and Land of the Free (by which of
course I mean to say agin, Britannia). Our young ladies, Miss Whiff,
Miss Piff, and Mrs. Sniff, was unanimous opposed to her going; for, as
they says to Our Missis one and all, it is well beknown to the hends of
the herth as no other nation except Britain has a idea of anythink, but
above all of business. Why then should you tire yourself to prove what
is aready proved? Our Missis however (being a teazer at all pints) stood
out grim obstinate, and got a return pass by South-Eastern Tidal, to go
right through, if such should be her dispositions, to Marseilles.
Sniff is husband to Mrs. Sniff, and is a regular insignificant cove. He
looks arter the sawdust department in a back room, and is sometimes when
we are very hard put to it let in behind the counter with a corkscrew;
but never when it can be helped, his demeanour towards the public being
disgusting servile. How Mrs. Sniff ever come so far to lower herself as
to marry him, I don't know; but I suppose _he_ does, and I should think
he wished he didn't, for he leads a awful life. Mrs. Sniff couldn't be
much harder with him if he was public. Similarly, Miss Whiff and Miss
Piff; taking the tone of Mrs. Sniff, they shoulder Sniff about when he is
let in with a corkscrew, and they whisk things out of his hands when in
his servility he is a going to let the public have 'em, and they snap him
up when in the crawling baseness of his spirit he is a going to answer a
public question, and they drore more tears into his eyes than ever the
mustard does which he all day long lays on to the sawdust. (But it ain't
strong.) Once, when Sniff had the repulsiveness to reach across to get
the milk-pot to hand over for a baby, I see Our Missis in her rage catch
him by both his shoulders and spin him out into the Bandolining Room.
But Mrs. Sniff. How different! She's the one! She's the one as you'll
notice to be always looking another way from you, when you look at he
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