Page:Dickens - A Child s History of England, 1900.djvu/747

Rh his face, and which can hardly hold you from goosing him audible when he's going through his war-dance—it stands to reason you wouldn't under them circumstances deprive yourself to support that Indian in the lap of luxury.

Most unexpected, the mystery come out one day at Egham Races. The public was shy of bein' pulled in, and Chops was ringin' his little bell out of his drawing-room winder, and was snarlin' to me over his shoulder as he kneeled down with his legs out at the back door—for he couldn't be shoved into his house without kneeling down, and the premises wouldn't accommodate his legs—was snarlin, "Here's a precious public for you; why the devil don't they tumble up?" when a man in the crowd holds up a carrier-pigeon, and cries out: "If there is any person here as has got a ticket, the lottery's just drawed, and the number as has come up for the great prize is three, seven, forty-two! Three, seven, forty-two!" I was givin' the man to the furies myself, for calling off the public's attention—for the public will turn away, at any time, to look at anything in preference to the thing showed 'em: and if you doubt it, get 'em together for any indiwidual purpose on the face of the earth, and send only two people in late, and see if the whole company ain't far more interested in takin' particular notice of them two than of you—I say, I wasn't best pleased with the man for callin' out, and wasn't blessin' him in my own mind, when I see Chops's liitle bell fly out of winder at a old lady, and he gets up and kicks his box over, exposin' the whole secret, and he catches hold of the calves of my legs and he says to me, "Carry me into the wan, Toby, and throw a pail of water over me or I'm a dead man, for I've come into my property!"

Twelve thousand odd hundred jwund, was Chops's winnins. He had bought a half-ticket for the twenty-five thousand prize, and it had come up. The first use he made of his property was to offer to fight the wild Indian for five hundred pound a side, him with a poisoned darnin'-needle and the Indian with a club; but the Indian bein' in want of backers to that amount, it went no further.

After he had been mad for a week—in a state of mind,