blush. But is the
old fellow, our customer has brought, his intimate friend, he never
saw but once, thirty years ago?

_Dan._ Ees; that be old Job Thornberry, the brazier; and, as sure as
you stand there, when we got to his shop, they were going to make
him a banker.

_Dennis._ A banker! I never saw one made. How do they do it?

_Dan._ Why, the bum baileys do come into his house, and claw away
all his goods and furniture.

_Dennis._ By the powers, but that's one way of setting a man going
in business!

_Dan._ When we got into the shop, there they were, as grum as
thunder.--You ha' seen a bum bailey?

_Dennis._ I'm not curious that way. I might have seen one, once or
twice; but I was walking mighty fast, and had no time to look behind
me.

_Dan._ My companion--our customer--he went up stairs, and I bided
below;--and then they began a knocking about the goods and
chapels.--That ware no business o' mine.

_Dennis._ Sure it was not.

_Dan._ Na, for sartin; so I ax'd 'em what they were a doing;--and
they told I, wi' a broad grin, taking an invention of the
misfortunate man's defects.

_Dennis._ Choke their grinning! The law of the land's a good doctor;
but, bad luck to those that gorge upon such a fine physician's poor
patients! Sure, we know, now and then, it's mighty wholesome to
bleed; but nobody falls in love with the leech.

_Dan._ They comed down stairs--our customer and the brazier; and
the head baily he began a bullocking at the old man, in my mind,
just as one christian shou'dn't do to another. I had nothing to do
wi' that.

_Dennis._ Damn the bit.

_Dan._ No, nothing at all; and so my blood began to rise. He made
the poor old man almost fit to cry.

_Dennis._ That wasn't your concern, you know.

_Dan._ Bless you, mun! 'twould ha' look'd busy like, in me, to say a
word; so I took up a warming pan, and I bang'd bum bailey, wi' the
broad end on't, 'till he fell o' the floor as fat as twopence.

_Dennis._ Oh, hubaboo! lodge in my heart, and I'll never ax you for
rent--you're a friend in need. Remember, I've a warmingpan--you know
where it hangs, and that's enough.

_Dan._ They had like to ha' warm'd I, finely, I do know. I ware nigh
being haul'd to prison; 'cause, as well as I could make out their
cant, it do seem I had rescued myself, and broke a statue.

_Dennis._ Och, the Philistines!

_Dan._ But our traveller--I do think he be the devil--he settled all
in a jiffy; for he paid the old man