126 PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF MR. WATKINS TOTTL E. 



difficulty in recognizing as the man who had called upon him in the 

 morning. 



" Vy," responded the factotum, " it's one of the rummest rigs you 

 ever heard on. He come in here last Vensday, which, by the bye, 

 he's a going over the water to night hows'ever that's neither here 

 nor there. You see I've been going back'ards and for'ards about his 

 business, and ha' managed to pick up some of his story from the ser- 

 vants and them ; and so far as I can make it out, it seems to be sum- 

 mat to this here effect " 



" Cut it short, old fellow," interrupted Walker, who knew from 

 former experience that he of the top-boots was neither very concise 

 nor intelligible in his narratives. 



" Let me alone/' replied Ikey, " and I'll ha' vound up, and made 

 my lucky in five seconds. This here young gen'lm's father so I'm 

 told, mind ye and the father o' the young voman, have always been 

 on very bad, out-and-out, rig'lar knock-me-down, sort o' terms ; but 

 somehow or another when he was a wisitin' at some gentlefolk's 

 house, as he know'd at college, he come into contract with the young 

 lady. He seed her several times ; and then he up and said he'd 

 keep cbmpany with her, if so be as she vos agreeable. Veil she vos 

 as sweet upon him as he vos upon her, and so I s'pose they made it 

 all right : for they got married 'bout six months arterwards, unbe- 

 known mind ye to the two fathers leastways so I'm told. When 

 they heard on it my eyes there was sitch a combustion ! Starva- 

 tion vos the very least that vos to be done to 'em. The young gen'l- 

 m'ns father cut him off vith a bob 'cos he'd cut himself off vith a 

 wife ; and the young lady's father he behaved even worser and more 

 unnat'ral, for he not only blovv'd her up dreadful, and swore he'd 

 never see her again, but he employed a chap as I knows and as 

 you knows, Mr. Valker, a precious sight too well to go about and 

 buy up the bills and them things, on which the young husband, 

 thinking his governor 'ud come round agin, had raised the vind just 

 to blow himself on vith for a time ; besides vich, he made all the in- 

 terest he could to set other people agin him. Consequence vos, that 

 he paid as long as he could ; but things he never expected to have 

 to meet till he'd had time to turn himself round, come fast upon 

 him, and he vos nabbed. He vos brought here, as I said before, 

 last Vensday, and I think there's about ah half-a-dozen detainers 

 agin him down stairs now. I have been," added Ikey, " in the 

 purfession these fifteen year, and I never met vith such windictive- 

 ness afore !" 



" Poor creeturs !" exclaimed the coal-dealer's wife once more : 

 again resorting to the same excellent prescription for nipping a sigh 

 in the bud ; " Ah ! when they've seen as much trouble as I and my 

 old man here have, they'll be as comfortable under it, as we are." 



" The young lady's a pretty creature," said Walker, " only 

 she's a little too delicate for my taste there an't enough of her. As 

 to the young cove, he may be very respectable and what not, but 

 he's too down in the mouth for me he an't game." 



" Game !" exclaimed Ikey, who had been altering the position of a 

 green-handled knife and fork at least a dozen times in order that he 



