and that will be a matter of forty-five mouthfuls each.'
'Get nine pounds of them,' said Mr Oakley, 'if they are wanted; I know Ben has an appetite.'
'Indeed,' said Ben, 'but I have fell off lately, and don't take to my wittals as I used; you can order, missus, if you please, a gallon of half-and-half as you go along. One must have a drain of drink of some sort; and mind you don't be going to any expense on my account, and getting anything but the little snack I have mentioned, for ten to one I shall take supper when I get to the Tower; only human nature is weak, you know, missus, and requires something to be a continually a-holding of it up.'
'Certainly,' said Mr Oakley, 'certainly have what you like, Ben; just say the word before Mrs Oakley goes out, is there anything else?'
'No, no,' said Ben, 'oh dear no, nothing to speak of; but if you should pass a shop where they sells fat bacon, about four or five pounds, cut into rashers, you'll find, missus, will help down the blessed sausages.'
'Gracious Providence,' said Mrs Oakley, 'who is to cook it?'
'Who is to cook it, ma'am? why, the kitchen fire, I suppose; but mind ye if the man ain't got any sausages, there's a shop where they sells biled beef at the corner, and I shall be quite satisfied if you brings in about ten or twelve pounds of that. You can make it up into about half a dozen sandwiches.'
'Go, my dear, go at once,' said Mr Oakley, 'and get Ben his supper. I am quite sure he wants it, and be as quick as you can.'
'Ah,' said Ben, when Mrs Oakley was gone, 'I didn't tell you howl was sarved last week at Mrs Harvey's. You know they are so precious genteel there that they won't speak above their blessed breaths for fear of wearing themselves out; and they sits down in a chair as if it was balanced only on one leg, and a little more one way or t'other would upset them. Then, if they sees a crumb a-laying on the floor they rings a bell, and a poor half-starved devil of a servant comes and says, "Did you ring, ma'am?" and then they says, "Yes, bring a dust shovel and a broom, there is a crumb a-laying there," and then says I - "Danm you all," says I, "bring a scavenger's cart, and a half-dozen birch brooms, there's a cinder just fell out of the fire."
'Then in course they gets shocked, and looks as blue as possible, and arter that when they sees as I ain't a-going, one of them says, "Mr Benjamin Blummergutts, would you like to take a glass of wine?" "I should think so," says I. Then he says, says he, "Which would you prefer, red or white?" says he.
'"White," says I, "while you are screwing up your courage to pull out the red," so out they pull it; and as soon as I got hold of the bottle, I knocked the neck of it off over the top of the fireplace, and then drank it all up.
'"Now, damn ye," says I, "you thinks as all this is mighty genteel and fine, but I don't, and consider you to be the blessedest set of humbugs ever I set eyes on; and, if you ever catch me here again, I'll be genteel too, and I can't say more than that. Go to the devil, all of ye." So out I went, only I met with a little accident in the hall, for they had got a sort of lamp hanging there, and, somehow or 'nother, my head went bang into it; and I carried it out round my neck; but, when I did get out, I took it off, and shied it slap in at the parlour window. You never heard such a smash in all your life. I dare say they all fainted away for about a week, the blessed humbugs.'
'Well, I should not wonder,' said Mr Oakley. 'I never go near them, because I don't like their foolish pomposity and pride, which, upon very slender resources, tries to ape what it don't at all understand; but here is Mrs Oakley with the sausages, and I hope you will make yourself comfortable, Ben.'
'Comfortable! I believe ye. I rather shall. I means it, and no mistake.'
'I have brought three pounds,' said Mrs Oakley, 'and told the man to call in a quarter of an hour, in case there is more wanted.'
'The devil you have; and the bacon, Mrs Oakley, the bacon!'
'I couldn't get any - the man had nothing but hams.'
'Lor', ma'am, I'd a put up with a ham, cut thick, and never have said a word about it. I am an angel of a temper, if you did but know it! Hilloa! look, is that the fellow with the half-and-half?'
'Yes, here it is - a pot.'
'A what!'
'A pot, to be sure.'
'Well, I never; you are getting genteel, Mrs Oakley. Then give us a hold of it.'
Ben took the pot, and emptied it at a draught, and then he gave a tap at the bottom of it with his knuckles, to signify he had accomplished that feat, and then he said, 'I tells you what, ma'am, if you takes me for a baby, it's a great mistake, and anyone would think you did, to see you offering me a pot merely; it's a insult, ma'am.'
'Fiddle-de-de,' said Mrs Oakley; 'it's a much greater insult to drink it all up, and give nobody a drop.'
'Is it? I wants to know how you are to stop it, ma'am, when you gets it to your mouth? that's what I axes you - how are you to stop it, ma'am? You didn't want me to spew it back again, did you, eh, ma'am?'
'You low, vile wretch!'
'Come, come, my dear,' said Mr Oakley, 'you know our cousin Ben don't live among the most refined society, and so you ought to be able to look over a little of - of - his - I may say, I am sure without offence, roughness, now and then; come, come, there is no harm done, I'm sure. Forget and forgive, say I. That's my maxim; and always has been, and will always be.'
'Well,' said the beefeater, 'it's a good one to get through the world with, and so there's an end of it. I forgives you, Mother Oakley.'
'You forgive -'
'Yes, to be sure. Though I am only a beefeater, I supposes as I may forgive people for all that - eh, Cousin Oakley?'
'Of course, Ben, of course. Come, come, wife, you know as well as I that Ben has many good qualities, and that take him for all in all as the man in the play says, we shan't in a hurry look upon his like again.'
'And I'm sure I don't want to look upon his like again,' said Mrs Oakley; 'I'd rather by a good deal keep him a week than a fortnight. He's enough to breed a famine in the land, that he is.'
'Oh, bless you, no,' said Ben, 'that's amongst your little mistakes, ma'am, I can assure you. By the by, what a blessed long time that fellow is coming with the rest of the beer and the other sausages -why, what's the matter with you, Cousin Oakley - eh, old chap, you look out of sorts?'
'I don't feel just the thing, do you know, Ben.'
'Not - the thing - why - why now you come to mention it, I somehow feel as if all my blessed inside was on a turn and a twist. The devil - I - don't feel comfortable at all, I don't.'
'And I am getting very ill,' gasped Mr Oakley.
'And I'm getting iller,' said the beef-eater, manufacturing a word for the occasion. 'Bless my soul! there's something gone wrong in my inside. I know there's murder - there's a go - oh, Lord! it's a-doubling me up, it is.'
'I feel as if my last hour had come,' said Mr Oakley - 'I'm a - a -dying, man - I am - oh, good gracious, there was a twinge!'
Mrs Oakley, with all the coolness in the world, took down her bonnet from behind the parlour-door where it hung, and, as she put it on, said, 'I told you both that some judgement would come over you, and now you see it has. How do you like it? Providence is
