on the saltbox, or a sonata on the tongs and gridiron. Be that as it
may, the young lawyer seemed to be a little discomposed at the glancing
of this extraordinary weapon of offence, which the fair hands of Dolly
had scoured, until it had shone as bright as the shield of Achilles; or
as the emblem of good old English fare, which hangs by a red ribbon round
the neck of that thrice-honoured sage's head, in velvet bonnet cased, who
presides by rotation at the genial board, distinguished by the title of
the Beef-steak Club where the delicate rumps irresistibly attract the
stranger's eye, and, while they seem to cry, "Come cut me--come cut me,"
constrain, by wondrous sympathy, each mouth to overflow. Where the
obliging and humorous Jemmy B----t, the gentle Billy H----d, replete with
human kindness, and the generous Johnny B----d, respected and beloved by
all the world, attend as the priests and ministers of mirth, good cheer,
and jollity, and assist with culinary art the raw, unpractised, awkward
guest.

But to return from this digressive simile. The ostler no sooner stept
between those menacing antagonists, than Tom Clarke very quietly resumed
his clothes, and Mr. Ferret resigned the gridiron without further
question. The doctor did not find it quite so easy to release the throat
of Captain Crowe from the masculine grasp of the virago Dolly, whose
fingers could not be disengaged until the honest seaman was almost at the
last gasp. After some pause, during which he panted for breath, and
untied his neckcloth, "D--n thee, for a brimstone galley," cried he; "I
was never so grappled withal since I knew a card from a compass.--
Adzooks! the jade has so tautened my rigging, d'ye see, that I--Snatch my
bowlines, if I come athwart thy hawser, I'll turn thy keel upwards--or
mayhap set thee a-driving under thy bare poles--I will--I will, you
hell-fire, saucy--I will."