“Gentlemen!” said Mr. Tappertit, taking off his hat as a great general might in addressing his troops. “Well met. My lord does me and you the honour to send his compliments per self.”
“You’ve seen my lord too, have you?” said Dennis. “I see him this afternoon.”
“My duty called me to the Lobby when our shop shut up; and I saw him there, sir,” Mr. Tappertit replied, as he and his lieutenants took their seats. “How do you do?”
“Lively, master, lively,” said the fellow. “Here’s a new brother, regularly put down in black and white by Muster Gashford; a credit to the cause; one of the stick-at-nothing sort; one arter my own heart. D’ye see him? Has he got the looks of a man that’ll do, do you think?” he cried, as he slapped Hugh on the back.
“Looks or no looks,” said Hugh, with a drunken flourish of his arm, “I’m the man you want. I hate the Papists, every one of ’em. They hate me and I hate them. They do me all the harm they can, and I’ll do them all the harm I can. Hurrah!”
“Was there ever,” said Dennis, looking round the room, when the echo of his boisterous voice had died away; “was there ever such a game boy! Why, I mean to say, brothers, that if Muster Gashford had gone a hundred mile and got together fifty men of the common run, they wouldn’t have been worth this one.”
The greater part of the company implicitly subscribed to this opinion, and testified their faith in Hugh by nods and looks of great significance. Mr. Tappertit sat and contemplated him for a long time in silence, as if he suspended his judgment; then drew a little nearer to him, and eyed him over more carefully; then went close up to him, and took him apart into a dark corner.
“I say,” he began, with a thoughtful brow, “haven’t I seen you before?”
“It’s like you may,” said Hugh, in his careless way. “I don’t know; shouldn’t wonder.”
“No, but it’s very easily settled,” returned Sim. “Look at me. Did you ever see me before? You wouldn’t be likely to forget it, you know, if you ever did. Look at me. Don’t be afraid; I won’t do you any harm. Take a good look—steady now.”
The encouraging way in which Mr. Tappertit made this request, and coupled it with an assurance that he needn’t be frightened, amused Hugh mightily—so much indeed, that he saw nothing at all of the small man before him, through closing his eyes in a fit of hearty laughter, which shook his great broad sides until they ached again.
“Come!” said Mr. Tappertit, growing a little impatient under this disrespectful treatment. “Do you know me, feller?”
“Not I,” cried Hugh. “Ha ha ha! Not I! But I should like to.”
“And yet I’d have wagered a seven-shilling piece,” said Mr. Tappertit, folding his arms, and confronting him with his legs wide apart and firmly planted on the ground, “that you once were hostler at the Maypole.”
Hugh opened his eyes on hearing this, and looked at him in great surprise.
“—And so you were, too,” said Mr. Tappertit, pushing him away with a condescending playfulness. “When did my eyes ever deceive—unless it was a young woman! Don’t you know me now?”
“Why it an’t—” Hugh faltered.
“An’t it?” said Mr. Tappertit. “Are you sure of that? You remember G. Varden, don’t you?”
Certainly Hugh did, and he remembered D. Varden too; but that he didn’t tell him.
“You remember coming down there, before I was out of my time, to ask after a vagabond that had bolted off, and left his disconsolate father a prey to the bitterest emotions, and all the rest of it—don’t you?” said Mr. Tappertit.
“Of course I do!” cried Hugh. “And I saw you there.”
“Saw me there!” said Mr. Tappertit. “Yes, I should think you did see me there. The place would be troubled to go on without me. Don’t you remember my thinking you liked the vagabond, and on that account going to quarrel with you; and then finding you detested him worse than poison, going to drink with you? Don’t you remember that?”
“To be sure!” cried Hugh.
“Well! and are you in the same mind now?” said Mr. Tappertit.
“Yes!” roared Hugh.
“You speak like a man,” said Mr. Tappertit, “and I’ll shake hands with you.” With these conciliatory expressions he suited the action to the word; and Hugh meeting his advances readily, they performed the ceremony with a show of great heartiness.
“I find,” said Mr. Tappertit, looking round on the assembled guests, “that brother What’s-his-name and I are old acquaintance.—You never heard anything more of that rascal, I suppose, eh?”
“Not a syllable,” replied Hugh. “I never want to. I don’t believe I ever shall. He’s dead long ago, I hope.”
“It’s to be hoped, for the sake of mankind in general and the happiness of society, that he is,” said Mr. Tappertit, rubbing his palm upon his legs, and looking at it between whiles. “Is your other hand at all cleaner? Much the same. Well, I’ll owe you another shake. We’ll suppose it done, if you’ve no objection.”
Hugh laughed again, and with such thorough abandonment to his mad humour, that his limbs seemed dislocated, and his whole frame in danger of tumbling to pieces; but Mr. Tappertit, so far from receiving this extreme merriment with any irritation, was pleased to regard it with the
