It warn’t long after that, that I read in the newspaper of Mr. Chops’s being presented at court. It was printed: “It will be recollected”--and I’ve noticed in my life that it is sure to be printed that it _will_ be recollected whenever it won’t--“that Mr. Chops is the individual of small stature whose brilliant success in the last State Lottery attracted so much attention.” “Well,” I said to myself, “such is life! He has been and done it in earnest at last! He has astonished George the Fourth!”
On account of which I had that canvas new painted, him with a bag of money in his hand, a presentin it to George the Fourth, and a lady in ostrich feathers fallin in love with him in a bagwig, sword, and buckles correct.
I took the house as is the subject of present inquiries--though not the honor of being acquainted--and I run Magsman’s Amusements in it thirteen months--sometimes one thing, sometimes another, sometimes nothin particular, but always all the canvases outside. One night, when we had played the last company out, which was a shy company through its raining heavens hard, I was takin a pipe in the one pair back, along with the young man with the toes, which I had taken on for a month (though he never drawed--except on paper), and I heard a kickin at the street door. “Halloa!” I says to the young man, “what’s up?” He rubs his eyebrows with his toes, and he says, “I cant imagine, Mr. Magsman,”--which he never could imagine nothin, and was monotonous company.
The noise not leavin off, I laid down my pipe, and I took up a candle, and I went down and opened the door. I looked out into the street; but nothin could I see, and nothin was I aware of, until I turned round quick, because some creeter run between my legs into the passage. There was Mr. Chops!
“Magsman,” he says, “take me on the hold terms, and you’ve got me; if it’s done, say done!”
I was all of a maze, but I said, “Done, sir.”
“Done to your done, and double done!” says he. “Have you got a bit of supper in the house?”
Bearin in mind them sparklin warieties of foreign drains as we’d guzzled away at in Pall Mall, I was ashamed to offer him cold sassages and gin-and-water; but he took ’em both and took ’em free; havin a chair for his table, and sittin down at it on a stool, like hold times,--I all of a maze all the while.