Why, I remember the time when old Maunders as had
three-and-twenty wans--I remember the time when old Maunders had
in his cottage in Spa Fields in the winter time, when the season
was over, eight male and female dwarfs setting down to dinner every
day, who was waited on by eight old giants in green coats, red
smalls, blue cotton stockings, and high-lows: and there was one
dwarf as had grown elderly and wicious who whenever his giant
wasn't quick enough to please him, used to stick pins in his legs,
not being able to reach up any higher. I know that's a fact, for
Maunders told it me himself.'
'What about the dwarfs when they get old?' inquired the landlord.
'The older a dwarf is, the better worth he is,' returned Mr Vuffin;
'a grey-headed dwarf, well wrinkled, is beyond all suspicion. But
a giant weak in the legs and not standing upright!--keep him in
the carawan, but never show him, never show him, for any persuasion
that can be offered.'
While Mr Vuffin and his two friends smoked their pipes and beguiled
the time with such conversation as this, the silent gentleman sat
in a warm corner, swallowing, or seeming to swallow, sixpennyworth
of halfpence for practice, balancing a feather upon his nose, and
rehearsing other feats of dexterity of that kind, without paying
any regard whatever to the company, who in their turn left him
utterly unnoticed.
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