"They? Rather say we, Joey."

Joey Ladle shook his held. "Don't look to me to make we on it, Young
Master Wilding, not at my time of life and under the circumstances which
has formed my disposition. I have said to Pebbleson Nephew many a time,
when they have said to me, 'Put a livelier face upon it, Joey'--I have
said to them, 'Gentlemen, it is all wery well for you that has been
accustomed to take your wine into your systems by the conwivial channel
of your throttles, to put a lively face upon it; but,' I says, 'I have
been accustomed to take _my_ wine in at the pores of the skin, and, took
that way, it acts different. It acts depressing. It's one thing,
gentlemen,' I says to Pebbleson Nephew, 'to charge your glasses in a
dining-room with a Hip Hurrah and a Jolly Companions Every One, and it's
another thing to be charged yourself, through the pores, in a low dark
cellar and a mouldy atmosphere. It makes all the difference betwixt
bubbles and wapours,' I tells Pebbleson Nephew. And so it do. I've been
a cellarman my life through, with my mind fully given to the business.
What's the consequence? I'm as muddled a man as lives--you won't find a
muddleder man than me--nor yet you won't find my equal in molloncolly.
Sing of Filling the bumper fair, Every drop you sprinkle, O'er the brow
of care, Smooths away a wrinkle? Yes. P'raps so. But try filling
yourself through the pores, underground, when you don't want to it!"

"I am sorry to hear this, Joey. I had even thought that you might join a
singing-class in the house."

"Me, sir? No, no, Young Master Wilding, you won't catch Joey Ladle
muddling the Armony. A pecking-machine, sir, is all that I am capable of
proving myself, out of my cellars; but that you're welcome to, if you