and can only shake hands and grin to the movements of the lips of the
speaker. "You find it very warm inside, I should think, sir?" "Thank
ye, thank ye, my good friend; I'm rayther deaf, but I presume you're
inquiring after my wife and daughters--they are very well, I thank ye."
"Where will you sit at dinner?" rejoins the first speaker, in hopes of a
more successful hit. "It is two years since I saw him." "No; where
will you sit, sir? I said." "Oh, John? I beg your pardon--I'm rayther
deaf--he's in Jamaica with his regiment." "Come, waiter, BRING DINNER!"
roared Mr. Jorrocks, at the top of his voice, being the identical shout
that was heard outside, and presently the two dishes of pork, a couple
of ducks, and a lump of half-raw, sadly mangled, cold roast beef, with
waxy potatoes and overgrown cabbages, were scattered along the table.
"What a beastly dinner!" exclaims an inside dandy, in a sable-collared
frock-coat--"the whole place reeks with onions and vulgarity. Waiter,
bring me a silver fork!" "Allow me to duck you, ma'am?" inquires an
outside passenger, in a facetious tone, of a female in a green silk
cloak, as he turns the duck over in the dish. "Thank you, sir, but I've
some pork coming." "Will you take some of this thingumbob?" turning a
questionable-looking pig's countenance over in its pewter bed. "You are
in considerable danger, my friend--you are in considerable danger,"
drawls forth the superfine insider to an outsider opposite. "How's
that?" inquires the former in alarm. "Why, you are eating with your
knife, and you are in considerable danger of cutting your mouth".--What
is the matter at the far end of the table?--a lady in russet brown, with
a black velvet bonnet and a feather, in convulsions. "She's choking by
Jove! hit her on the back--gently, gently--she's swallowed a fish-bone."
"I'll lay five to two she dies," cries Mr. Bolus, the sporting doctor of
Sittingbourne. She coughs--up comes a couple of tooth-picks, she having
drunk off a green glass of them in mistake.