And I know it ain't sausages. I'll tell you
what it is. No, it isn't, neither. Why, what am I thinking of! I shall
forget my own name next. It's tripe!" Forthwith, to reward him for
having thus hit it off at last so cleverly, Meg, as she expressed it,
with a flourish, laid the cloth, meaning the pocket-handkerchief in
which the basin of tripe had been tied up, and actually offered the
sybarite who was going to enjoy the unexpected banquet, a choice of
dining-places! "Where will you dine, father? On the post, or on the
steps? How grand we are: two places to choose from!" The weather being
dry, and the steps therefore chosen, those being rheumatic only in the
damp, Trotty Veck was not merely represented by the Reader as feasting
upon the tripe, but as listening meanwhile to Meg's account of how it
had all been arranged that she and her lover Eichard should, upon the
very next day, that is, upon New Year's Day, be married.

In the midst of this agreeable confabulation--Richard himself having in
the interim become one of the party--the little old ticket-porter,
the pretty daughter, and the sturdy young blacksmith, were suddenly
scattered. The Reader went on to relate how this happened, with
ludicrous accuracy, upon the abrupt opening of the door, around the
steps of which they were gathered--a flunkey nearly putting his foot in
the tripe, with this indignant apostrophe, "Out of the vays, here, will
you? You must always go and be a settin' on our steps, must you? You
can't go and give a turn to none of the neighbours never, can't you?"
Adding, even, a moment afterwards, with an aggrieved air of almost
affecting expostulation, "You're always a being begged and prayed upon
your bended knees, you are, to let our door-steps be? Can't you let
'em be?" Nothing more was seen or heard of that footman, and yet in the
utterance of those few words of his the individuality of the man somehow
was thoroughly realised. Observing him, listening to him, as he stood
there palpably before us, one seemed to understand better than ever
Thackeray's declaration in regard to those same menials in plush
breeches, that a certain delightful "quivering swagger" of the
calves about them, had for him always, as he expressed it, "a frantic
fascination!" Immediately afterwards, however, as the Reader turned
a new leaf, in place of the momentary apparition of that particular
flunkey, three very different persons appeared to step across the
threshold on to