“Landlord!” he roared, in a voice that made the glasses ring again. “Landlord! I say, curse on you for a sluggish hand, come hither! Where’s your respect for your king, you keeper of bad butts—you thief, you purloiner of honester men’s sack?—Come hither, I say.”
“Ha!—Ha!” laughed a man, who had come a long way to chance a treat at the Chequers—“Ha!—Ha!—That’s good. Ho!—Ho!”
“I—I—oh—I—I—am—a cordwainer from the Borough, sir.”
Some one here charitably whispered to the cordwainer the fact of Britton’s kingly dignity! And with many winks and nods he corrected himself, and said,—
“I humbly beg your majesty’s most gracious pardon.”
“You be d—d!” said Britton. “You are a cordwainer, are you?—A cobbler, you mean—a patcher of leaks in bad shoes. Hark ye, Mr. Cordwainer, the next time you presume to laugh at anything I say, I’ll make a leak in your head.”
“May it please you, King Britton,” interposed the landlord, “I am here!”
“No you ain’t,” cried Britton, tripping up the landlord, who forthwith fell flat on the floor, “you are there!”
This was a stock joke, and was perpetrated nearly every evening; so the company laughed accordingly, particularly those who had seen and heard it before, the new-comers not being fully up to the wit of it.
Here the landlord rose, and rubbing the injured part of his person, said with a groan,—
“Well, gentlemen, did you ever know the like of that?”
“Here, come back with a bowl of punch,” cried Britton; “and, do you hear, some spiced canary—come, quick!”
“May I venture to ask!” said the landlord, still affecting to writhe with pain, “if the spiced canary is to be all round?”
“No, you may not ask!” said Britton; “off with you!”
“We’ll drink your majesty’s health,” said a pale thin man, with great humility.
“Your majesty has not yet ordered anything for us to drink,” said one.
“No, no, his majesty don’t mean,” said Britton. “You are a set of rascals—thieves all.”
“Ah,” said the cordwainer, casting his eyes up to the fly-cage that hung from the centre of the ceiling, “there is a great deal of dishonesty in the world.”
“There ain’t, and you are a liar!” cried Britton.
At this moment the door was flung open, and a wild figure stood in the entrance taking up the laugh of the guests in a strange discordant tone, and pointing the while at the smith with exultant look.