“You shall have it. Stop at that. How will you get the direction you talk of?”
“I am er man,” said Mr. Dolls, with majesty, “er get it, sir.”
“How will you get it, I ask you?”
“I am ill-used vidual,” said Mr. Dolls. “Blown up morning t’night. Called names. She makes mint money, sir, and never stands threepenn’orth rum.”
“Get on,” rejoined Eugene, tapping his palsied head with the fire-shovel, as it sank on his breast. “What comes next?”
Making a dignified attempt to gather himself together, but, as it were, dropping half a dozen pieces of himself while he tried in vain to pick up one, Mr. Dolls, swaying his head from side to side, regarded his questioner with what he supposed to be a haughty smile and a scornful glance.
“She looks upon me as mere child, sir. I am not mere child, sir. Man. Man talent. Lerrers pass betwixt ’em. Postman lerrers. Easy for man talent er get drection, as get his own drection.”
“Get it then,” said Eugene; adding very heartily under his breath, “—You brute! Get it, and bring it here to me, and earn the money for sixty threepenn’orths of rum, and drink them all, one a top of another, and drink yourself dead with all possible expedition.” The latter clauses of these special instructions he addressed to the fire, as he gave it back the ashes he had taken from it, and replaced the shovel.
Mr. Dolls now struck out the highly unexpected discovery that he had been insulted by Lightwood, and stated his desire to “have it out with him” on the spot, and defied him to come on, upon the liberal terms of a sovereign to a halfpenny. Mr. Dolls then fell a crying, and then