The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 267: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

240 REYNOLDS’ WORKS raised himself up with difficulty from the stones on which he had been so rudely flung, he thrust his elbow into the mummy’s mouth, and sent the hideous looking apology for a face crashing in. ‘“ My eyes, here’s a go!”’ shouted a man from the market, with half a dozen ropes of onions pendant to a stout stick over his shoulder, and a short clay pipe in his mouth. ‘“ Hooray!’ vociferated another individual from the same precincts, and who bore a basket of cabbages upon his head. But those who were nearest to the scene of the accident looked on with mingled dismay and horror, for the first glimpse they had caught of the hideous shape, as it rolled out of the trunk, naturally inspired those feelings. “My mummy — O my poor mummy! ”’ moaned Mr. Fos- silton, who was reduced to despair. “ What’s the old genelman a saying? ” asked a ragged hay of a dilapidated costermonger. “Vy, don’t you hear? ”” was the response; “‘ he’s a one out for his mammy.”’ ‘““My eyes! ”’ cried another; “‘ he’s rayther an old boy to be afeard that his mother should know he’s out,’ and this jest was received with uproarious laughter. “It’s his mummy, you fool,” said a somewhat superior species of the market population, for the speaker had on some great holiday visited a museum of curiosities. ‘‘ That’s a mummy, — most likely a King of Egypt, which died three or four thousand years ago and was preserved in bandages just as you preserve inguns in vinegar.” “A mummy indeed,” said a man, with a leathern apron on, who having emerged from the nearest public-house had worked his way through the crowd with the well-meant pur- pose of rendering his assistance. ‘‘ A rum-looking mummy this here. It’s uncommon like leather.” Thus speaking, the aproned individual took up a piece of the smashed countenance, and first breaking it into minuter fragments, he put a morsel between his teeth. “Oh, the cannibal! Blowed if he ain’t eating the mummy,” ejaculated several voices, and the foremost of the crowd gazed with a kind of awe-felt curiosity upon the mummy, and with mingled surprise and disgust upon the man in the leathern apron. ‘Mummy indeed,” exclaimed this individual, scornfully. CORNICIOOKS (E(0)