Page:Lady Barbarity; a romance (IA ladybarbarityrom00snai).pdf/110

 *miration, "you are smart, my boy, downright smart, that's what you are! Drown her's what I'd do, with her best dress and Sunday bonnet on. I should take her so, by the back of her commode, gently but firmly, George, and lead her to the Ouse. And then I should say, 'Ladyship, I allows you five minutes fer your prayers, for they never was more needed; because, ladyship, I'm a-going to drown you, like I would a ordinary cat what strays upon the tiles at night, and says there what she shouldn't say. Ow, you besom wi' your small feet and your mincing langwidge, you should smell hell if Joseph Flickers was your pa!"

Now I have sat long and often in a playhouse, but Sir John Vanbrugh, Mr. William Congreve, and all those other celebrated gentlemen of mirth have yet to give me an entertainment I enjoyed half so much as this. There was something so utterly delightful in the idea of Corporal Joseph Flickers being my papa, and his conception of a parent's duties in that case, that I had perforce to stuff my cloak into my mouth to prevent my laughter disturbing my denouncers.

Next moment, though, there was scanty cause for mirth. The Corporal, having delivered this tremendous speech with a raucous eloquence, gave it as his opinion that the prisoner had already been let into the house with my connivance, and that I had put him in hiding there. They were unanimous in this, and came to the conclusion that he would abide some hours there at least, as he had been so