If you must go flopping yourself down, flop in favour of

your husband and child, and not in opposition to ’em. If I had had

any but a unnat’ral wife, and this poor boy had had any but a

unnat’ral mother, I might have made some money last week

instead of being counterprayed and countermined and religiously

circumwented into the worst of luck. B-u-u-ust me!” said Mr.

Cruncher, who all this time had been putting on his clothes, “if I

ain’t, what with piety and one blowed thing and another, been

choused this last week into as bad luck as ever a poor devil of a

honest tradesman met with! Young Jerry, dress yourself, my boy,

and while I clean my boots keep an eye upon your mother now

and then, and if you see any signs of more flopping, give me a call.

For, I tell you,” here he addressed his wife once more, “I won’t be

gone agin, in this matter. I am as rickety as a hackney-coach, I’m

as sleepy as laudanum, my lines is strained to that degree that I

shouldn’t know, if it wasn’t for the pain in ’em, which was me and

which somebody else, yet I’m none the better for it in pocket; and

it’s my suspicion that you’ve been at it from morning to night to

prevent me from being the better for it in pocket, and I won’t put

up with it, Aggerawayter, and what do you say now!”

Growling, in addition, such phrases as “Ah! yes! You’re

religious, too. You w