Whistle or talk, what you please, I'll listen; tell
me anything; stories of horses, dogs, dice, snuff, women, cocks,
parsons, wine--what you will. Come, how's Sturk? He's beaten poor
Nutter, and won the race; though the stakes, after all, were scarce
worth taking--and what's life without a guinea?--he's grown, I'm told,
so confoundedly poor, "quis pauper? avarus." A worthy man was Sturk,
and, in some respects, resembled the prophet, _Shylock_; but you know
nothing of him--why the plague don't you read your Bible, Toole?'
'Well,' said Toole, candidly, 'I don't know the Old Testament as well as
the New; but certainly, whoever he's like, he's held out wonderfully.
'Tis nine weeks since he met that accident, and there he's still, above
ground; but that's all--just above ground, you see.'
'And how's Cluffe?'
'Pooh, Cluffe indeed! Nothing ever wrong with him but occasional
over-eating. Sir, you'd a laughed to-day had you seen him. I gave him a
bolus, twice the size of a gooseberry. "What's this?" said he. "A
bolus," says I. "The devil," says he; "dia-bolus, then," says I--"hey?"
said I, "well?" ha! ha! and by Jove, Sir, it actually half stuck in his
oesophagus, and I shoved it down like a bullet, with a probang; you'd
a died a laughing, yet 'twasn't a bit too big.
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