Mr. Bumpkin was never what you would call an eloquent or fluent speaker: his Somersetshire brogue was at times difficult of comprehension. He certainly was not fluent when he said to Mrs. Oldtimes: “Why thic—there—damn un Mrs. Oldtimes if he beant gwine and never zeed zich a thing in my bornd days—”
“Why what ever in the name of goodness gracious is the matter?” asked the landlady.
“Why thic there head witness o’ mine: a silly-brained—Gor forgive me that iver I should spake so o’ un, for he wor allays a good chap; and I do b’leeve he’ve got moore sense than do any thing o’ that kind.”
“What’s the matter? what’s the matter?” again enquired Mrs. Oldtimes.
“Why he be playin’ dominoes wi thic Sergeant.”
“O,” said the landlady, “I was afraid something had happened. We’re not allowed to know anything about dominoes or card-playing in our house—the Law forbids our knowing it, Mr. Bumpkin; so, if you please, we will not talk about it—I wish to conduct my house as it always has been for the last five-and-twenty years, in peace and quietness and respectability, Mr. Bumpkin, which nobody can never say to the contrairy. It was only the last licensing day Mr. Twiddletwaddle, the chairman of the Bench, said as it were the best conducted house in Westminster.”
Now whether it was that the report of this domino playing was made in the presence of so high a dignitary of the law as Mr. O’Rapley, or from any other cause, I cannot say, but Mrs. Oldtimes was really indignant, and positively refused to accept any statement which involved the character of her establishment.
“I think,” she continued, addressing Mr. O’Rapley, “you have known this house for some time, sir.”
“I have,” said O’Rapley. “I have passed it every evening for the last ten years.”
“Ah now, to be sure—you hear that, Mr. Bumpkin. What do you think of that?”
“Never saw anything wrong, I will say that.”
“Never a game in my house, if I knows it; and what’s more, I won’t believe it until I sees it.”
“Ockelar demonstration, that’s the law,” said the Don.
Mr. Bumpkin’s excitement was absolutely merged in that of the landlady, whom he had so innocently provoked. He stared as the parties continued their wordy justification of this well-ruled household like one dreaming with his eyes open. No woman could have made more ado about her own character than Mrs. Oldtimes did respecting that of her house. But then, the one could be estimated in money, while the other possessed but an abstract value.