xpect

me to befriend you when you get back to England. If you have,

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

don’t expect me to keep your secret. Tellson’s shall not be imposed

upon.”

“I hope, sir,” pleaded the abashed Mr. Cruncher, “that a

gentleman like yourself wot I’ve had the honour of odd jobbing till

I’m grey at it, would think twice about harming of me, even if it

wos soI don’t say it is, but even if it wos. And which it is to be

took into account that if it wos, it wouldn’t, even then, be all o’ one

side. There’d be two sides to it. There might be medical doctors at

the present hour, a picking up their guineas where a honest

tradesman don’t pick up his fardensfardens! no, nor yet his half

fardenshalf fardens! no, nor yet his quartera banking away

like smoke at Tellson’s, and a cocking their medical eyes at that

tradesman on the sly, going in and out to their own carriagesah!

equally like smoke, if not more so. Well, that ’ud be imposing too,

on Tellson’s. For you cannot sarse the goose and not the gander.

And here’s Mrs. Cruncher, or leastways wos in the Old England

times, and would be tomorrow, if cause given, a floppin agin the

business to that degree as is ruinatingstark ruinating! Whereas

them medical doctors’ wives don’t flopcatch ’em at it! Or, if they

flop, their floppin goes in favour of more patients, and how can