Page:The London Guide and Stranger's Safeguard.djvu/67

Rh begin some favourite subject; which happened to be the exact words of a verdict upon a trial at the Old Bailey that day. As is usual with a stupid set, and was expected by the speaker, one contradicts what was asserted, and the vest join in the contradiction. A wager is offered, and laid; it is doubled and doubled, and laid with all who choose to say done! "Who is to decide, look you?" asked the Welch wagering kiddy.

"Who! why any respectable man who heard it to be sure;" answered a glum old fellow, who did not so much relish the wordy contest as the smell of the blue mark, (as they call a bowl of punch) which accompanied every wager for money.

This mode of deciding was greeted as just by the other wagering kiddies, and agreed to by the Welch one, who told them he could "show them one of the jury presently. Who, now, look you! do you think was the foreman, then, upon that trial? Ah! you shall find I knows as much as all of you about things. Now, I will bet you a blue mark and five pounds I find the foreman in this neighbourhood."—"This was too bad," they said; and began to smell a rat.

Our Welchman resumed, "ah, it is too bad for you. What do you think of Mr. Jenkin James, Esquire, here?"