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246 "Was there boiled mutton at it?" asked Grout. "I really cannot say. It is not recorded."

"Give me boiled mutton, a little underdone, and I ask for nothing more," said Goppin.

"And," went on the curate, "he naturally wished his wife to be present. He wanted her to come down to be seen of his lords and princes." "Go on! Damn your sneezing. Put it off till you're preaching, and then no one will care," said Rebow.

"But," pursued the parson, when he had wiped his nose and eyes, and recovered breath after the fit, "Queen Vashti refused to come down." "Well, what did the husband say to that?" asked Elijah. "If he was a sensible man," said Goppin, "he cut into the mutton, and didn't bother about she." "You don't know, neighbour, that it was a leg of mutton," said Grout. "It might have been sirloin." "Sirloin!" exclaimed Bunting; "I wouldn't go ten yards to taste sirloin. There's not enough on the bone, except fat."

"Go on," said Elijah to the curate. "How did the man—king, was he?—take it?"

"He dismissed Vashti, and took Esther to be his queen. But then," put in the frightened curate, thinking he had suggested a startling precedent, "Ahasuerus was not a Christian, and knew no better." "Do you think," laughed Rebow, "that I would cast off my Glory for any other woman that ever was born? No, I would not. Let her do what she likes. She don't care to associate with such as you. She holds herself above you. And she's right. She is one the like of whom does not exist. She has a soul stronger and more man-like than anyone of you. If she don't choose to come and guzzle here along of you, she's right. I like her for it." He flung himself back in his chair and drained his full glass. "I ask you, Goppin! Did you ever see the equal of my Glory?"

"I can't say as ever I did, Rebow," answered the farmer. "I took the liberty to chuck her under the chin, and she