His object so fully attained, Jemmy, in his elation became airy, and at length quite softened to the tender. Placing his brown forepaws upon his knees, he looked down upon his golden clocks, which he thought had helped him to win the day, and evading madam’s request, he turned the subject to her husband’s death.
“Your worthy spouse, madam, died of an arterplax, (apoplexy?) I take it—a-a-hm—well.” The compliment was now revived. “A fat sorrow is better than a lean one—he’s left you well to do in the world, and sich a parsonable woman as you will find enough ready to supply his place.”
The smirk which had been frightened away on his entrance, again returned to adorn his lanthern jaws, giving Madam Fayerweather, in indignant amazement, some reason to imagine he contemplated offering himself as a candidate for the place he alluded to, with small doubts of being a favored one. She rose, and all the Borland blood mounted to her face. The bell-rope was jerked with a violence wholly unnecessary, for Scipio made his appearance before the bell could sound in the kitchen; he and Vi’let having, on Jemmy’s first entrance, stationed themselves in the passage between the parlor and kitchen, and had heard through the keyhole all which had passed. The guest, however, thought good to make a precipitate retreat without waiting for the ceremony of being shown the door. As he passed by the side-gate, Vi’let stood ready to salute him with a ladleful of some liquid, taken from a kettle on the kitchen hearth, which all the plates and dishes, as they had come from the table, had passed through to restore them to their native purity, leaving behind them their impurities floating on the top; and as the rich compound splashed over the skirts of his coat and his silken hose, with gold clocks, she cried after him:
“You want to take Misser Fayerweather’s place, do ye! ye old skinflint—well, see how you like a sup of Vi’let’s broth.”
Stung with his unceremonious dismission; his legs smarting with the scalding liquor, Vi’let’s insult was more than he could bear. Turning round in a rage, he called out, doubling up his fist and shaking it at her—
“Tell your proud jade of a mistress she wont hold her head so high long, on other people’s ground! And as for you! ye nigger”—he made use of an epithet which would not appear polite here—“I’ll have you up to the whipping-post!”