cramped brick-and-mortar pothooks—reminded me still more of Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. Happening to arrive at the door as it was opened to the afternoon milkman, I was reminded of Mr. and Mrs. Micawber more forcibly yet.
“Now,” said the milkman to a very youthful servant girl. “Has that there little bill of mine been heerd on?”
“Oh, master says he’ll attend to it immediate,” was the reply.
“Because,” said the milkman, going on as if he had received no answer, and speaking, as I judged from his tone, rather for the edification of somebody within the house, than of the youthful servant—an impression which was strengthened by his manner of glaring down the passage—“because that there little bill has been running so long, that I begin to believe it’s run away altogether, and never won’t be heerd of. Now, I’m not a-going to stand it, you know!” said the milkman, still throwing his voice into the house, and glaring down the passage.
As to his dealing in the mild article of milk, by the by, there never was a greater anomaly. His deportment would have been fierce in a butcher or a brandy-merchant.
The voice of the youthful servant became faint, but she seemed to me, from the action of her lips, again to murmur that it would be attended to immediate.
“I tell you what,” said the milkman, looking hard at her for the first time, and taking her by the chin, “are you fond of milk?”
“Yes, I likes it,” she replied.
“Good,” said the milkman. “Then you won’t have none tomorrow. D’ye hear? Not a fragment of milk you won’t have tomorrow.”