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Eugene Aram — Volume 01 by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton
page 42 of 167 (25%)

Peter Dealtry was assuredly a personage of peaceable disposition; but
then he had the proper pride of a host and a clerk. His feeling were
exceedingly wounded at this cavalier treatment--before the very eyes of
his wife too--what an example! He thrust his hands deep into his breeches
pockets, and strutting with a ferocious swagger towards the Traveller, he
said:--

"Harkye, sirrah! This is not the way folks are treated in this country:
and I'd have you to know, that I'm a man what has a brother a constable."

"Well, Sir!"

"Well, Sir, indeed! Well!--Sir, it's not well, by no manner of means; and
if you don't pay for the ale you drank, and go quietly about your
business, I'll have you put in the stocks for a vagrant."

This, the most menacing speech Peter Dealtry was ever known to deliver,
was uttered with so much spirit, that the Corporal, who had hitherto
preserved silence--for he was too strict a disciplinarian to thrust
himself unnecessarily into brawls,--turned approvingly round, and
nodding as well as his stock would suffer him at the indignant Peter, he
said: "Well done! 'fegs--you've a soul, man!--a soul fit for the forty-
second! augh!--A soul above the inches of five feet two!"

There was something bitter and sneering in the Traveller's aspect as he
now, regarding Dealtry, repeated--

"Vagrant--humph! And pray what is a vagrant?"

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