“Oh, how much for the jacket?” cried the old man, after examining it. “Oh—goroo!—how much for the jacket?”
“Half-a-crown,” I answered, recovering myself.
“Oh, my lungs and liver,” cried the old man, “no! Oh, my eyes, no! Oh, my limbs, no! Eighteenpence. Goroo!”
Every time he uttered this ejaculation, his eyes seemed to be in danger of starting out; and every sentence he spoke, he delivered in a sort of tune, always exactly the same, and more like a gust of wind, which begins low, mounts up high, and falls again, than any other comparison I can find for it.
“Well,” said I, glad to have closed the bargain, “I’ll take eighteenpence.”
“Oh, my liver!” cried the old man, throwing the jacket on a shelf. “Get out of the shop! Oh, my lungs, get out of the shop! Oh, my eyes and limbs—goroo!—don’t ask for money; make it an exchange.” I never was so frightened in my life, before or since; but I told him humbly that I wanted money, and that nothing else was of any use to me, but that I would wait for it, as he desired, outside, and had no wish to hurry him. So I went outside, and sat down in the shade in a corner. And I sat there so many hours, that the shade became sunlight, and the sunlight became shade again, and still I sat there waiting for the money.
There never was such another drunken madman in that line of business, I hope. That he was well known in the neighbourhood, and enjoyed the reputation of having sold himself to the devil, I soon