The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 222: what you’re looking at

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observed Tugs. “It was a pity it didn’t turn out better for you.” “ For my part I was precious savage at the dis- appointment,” remarked the Cannibal. “Taking all that trouble and running all that risk without getting a penny by it!” * Well, it was perwokin’, no doubt,” said Tugs, as he filled the three glasses from the bottle. “ But I sy, who is that Lady Bess, as you call her? I never see her afore. Whata smart-looking creetur’ she is.” ‘And doesn’t she look well in that there dress she wears!” exclaimed Mrs. Tugs. ‘What a elegant-fitting frock-coat! It gave her quite a man’s look—except about the bust, which is rayther too full to let the disguise be complete. I should think she must look uncommon well in her own proper dress—I mean when togged as a woman.” “‘T never see her dressed in any other way but as she was last night,” observed the Cannibal. “She is a queer creature, no doubt.” “Do you mean she is a rum un as a woman?” asked Tugs. “ No—not in that sense,” replied Chiffin. “TI never heard anything against her: quite t’other way—for it is said she hasn’t even the feelings and passions of her sex—no lovers, and therefore no intrigues. Such is what they say of her: but I be- lieve precious few really know anything about Lady Bess.” “She’s quite the lady,” said Mrs. Tugs. “And what a nice-spoken creatur’ too! One would think she was a person of quality—quite !” “‘T should say she’s quite the gentleman,” observed Tugs with a laugh. ‘“ Her manners is so good, and she has such a sort of off-hand way with her, it’s quite pleasant to hear her talk and observe her hat- titudes. She’s a dandy after her own sort: but yet not one of them kind of dandies that you’d like to kick all along a street. What do you think, Chiffin ? You know more about her than we do.” “T know deuced little about her,” responded the Cannibal. “She’s always in just the same mood you saw her last night—first-rate spirits, and with that sort of jovial frankness and open-heartedness, THR MYSTERIES OF THE COURT. 207 emptied her glass, except two or three drops which she let drain down the baby’s throat. “I see that the little creetur’ likes blue-ruin as well as his ma,” observed Chiffin with a laugh: but there was something horrible and ferocious even in the most good-humoured laugh which Mr. Chiffin could possibly assume. “It’s natur’,” said Mrs. Tugs. “ Natur’ makes us all love lush from our wery birth. Lord bless yer! I’ve seen smaller babbies than this von suck down the blue-ruin just as if it was their mother’s milk. But what more about this Lady Bess that I’m quite interested in? If so be she was raly a man, I should make Tugs jellus. Where does she bide P” * Ah! that she keeps precious dark to herself,” replied Chifin. “But I know that she is mostly seen about Edmonton and Tottenham; and one or two of my pals have twigged her more than once riding about them neighbourhoods in a lady’s dress —a habit as they call it,—and looking quite elegant and tip-top like. There must be summut very rum about that woman’s history !” “There must indeed, from all you have said,” observed Mrs. Tugs. ‘‘And so she actually does business on the highway? What a bold dashing creetur’ she must be! If I was a rich young gen’elman I shouldn’t at all mind being robbed by such a highwayman as that. You don’t know, then, what made her take to the road ?” “Not I,” responded Chiffiin. “ All that I know about her I’ve told you.” “And so the adwenture of last night turned out a failure, did it?’ said Tugs as he filled the glasses again. “Oh! a precious failure,” answered Chiffin: “nothing got by it! But I wonder whether this precious Madge is coming to-night. I am deucedly in want of the fresh air * “Why don’t you take a little stroll along the towing-path?” saidTugs. “The night’s dark enow, and you ain’t likely to meet any unpleasant cus- tomers. If Madge comes we can keep her till you return.” “So I will,” observed Chiffin: and having tossed as one may say, that somehow makes you like her. | off the contents of his glass, he ascended from the And then, although engaged with her in business that | _cabin, stepped ashore, and sauntered along the bank puts you on a sort of equality, you can’t help feeling | ' of the canal. the whole time that you are with a superior. That woman exercises what we may call an ascendancy over one; and however much you mayn’t like to acknowledge it to yourself, still you can’t help feel- ing it. Did you notice what a pair of eyes she has? don’t they seem as if they could pierce you through and through?” “I never saw such splendid eyes in all my life,” said Mrs. Tugs. “And what teeth too! I should think the handsomest and proudest young lord in the land would be glad to get a kiss from such lips as them.” “And I think that if he was to attempt it,” re- plied Chiffin, “he’d get Lady Bess’s whip pretty comfortably over his shoulders. At least, if all I have heard tell about her is true, that she hasn’t get the feelings of the sex “ How extr’ornary!” said Mrs, Tugs, apparently in a musing strain. “I know blessed well I’ve ae all them ere feelings :’ ’—and as she thus spoke, to all appearance in a very sentimental mood, she “Now, Polly,’ said the Blue-ruin Carrier when he and his wife were alone together in the cabin, “has no hidear struck you at all?”—and he looked very hard at her. “You mean that Chiffin’s got money about him ?” replied the woman, returning the look. “That’s just what I do mean,” said her husband, drawing closer towards her and speaking in a still lower and more significant tone. “I’m sure he has; and I don’t believe for a minute that the affair of last night turned out so queer. Chiffin never would have took it so quiet—he’s not the chap.” “ That’s what I thought,” responded Mrs. Tugs. “ And now, d’ye know why I took and questioned him so much about Lady Bess P” “ Woman's coorosity, I s’pose,” was the response. Woman’s fiddlestick!” cried Mrs. Tugs. “ It was just to see whether Chiflin would speak in a _way to show he had been disappointed with Lady Bess last night. If he had, it would have appeared a a aaa COMIC OOO© S (CO)