Tom thanked him gravely for the said honour, bowed him at last out of the shop, and then vaulted back clean over the counter, as soon as Elsley was out of sight, and commenced an Indian war-dance of frantic character, accompanying himself by an extemporary chaunt, with which the name of John Briggs was frequently intermingled;—­

  “If I don’t know you, Johnny, my boy,
    In spite of all your beard;
  Why then I am a slower fellow,
    Than ever has yet appeared,

“Oh if it was but he! what a card for me!  What a world it is for poor honest rascals like me to try a fall with!—­

  “Why didn’t I take bad verse to make,
    And call it poetry;
  And so make up to an earl’s daughter,
    Which was of high degree?

“But perhaps I am wrong after all:  no—­I saw he knew me, the humbug; though he never was a humbug, never rose above the rank of fool.  However, I’ll make assurance doubly sure, and then,—­if it pays me not to tell him I know him, I won’t tell him; and if it pays me to tell him, I will tell him.  Just as you choose, my good Mr. Poet.”  And Tom returned to his work, singing an extempore parody of “We met, ’twas in a crowd,” ending with—­

  “And thou art the cause of this anguish, my pill-box,”

in a howl so doleful, that Mrs. Heale marched into the shop, evidently making up her mind for an explosion.

“I am very sorry, sir, to have to speak to you upon such a subject, but I must say, that the profane songs, sir, which our house is not at all accustomed to them; not to mention that at your time of life, and in your position, sir, as my husband’s assistant, though there’s no saying (with a meaning toss of the head) how long it may last,”—­and there, her grammar having got into a hopeless knot, she stopped.

Tom looked at her cheerfully and fixedly.  “I had been expecting this,” said he to himself.  “Better show the old cat at once that I carry claws as well as she.”

“There is saying, madam, humbly begging your pardon, how long my present engagement will last.  It will last just as long as I like.”

Mrs. Heale boiled over with rage:  but ere the geyser could explode, Tom had continued in that dogged, nasal Yankee twang which he assumed when he was venomous: 

“As for the songs, ma’am, there are two ways of making oneself happy in this life; you can judge for yourself which is best.  One is to do one’s work like a man, and hum a tune, to keep one’s spirits up; the other is to let the work go to rack and ruin, and keep one’s spirits up, if one is a gentleman, by a little too much brandy;—­if one is a lady, by a little too much laudanum.”

“Laudanum, sir?” almost screamed Mrs. Heale, turning pale as death.

“The pint bottle of best laudanum, which I had from town a fortnight ago, ma’am, is now nearly empty, ma’am.  I will make affidavit that I have not used a hundred drops, or drunk one.  I suppose it was the cat.  Cats have queer tastes in the west, I believe.  I have heard the cat coming down stairs into the surgery, once or twice after I was in bed; so I set my door ajar a little, and saw her come up again:  but whether she had a vial in her paws—­”