Firstly, because
lambs has long been sheep, and secondly, because there is such
things as killing-days, and there is not. As to roast fowls, Miss,
why you must be quite surfeited with roast fowls, letting alone
your buying, when you market for yourself, the agedest of poultry
with the scaliest of legs, quite as if you was accustomed to
picking 'em out for cheapness. Try a little inwention, Miss. Use
yourself to 'ousekeeping a bit. Come now, think of somethink
else.'
To this encouragement, offered with the indulgent toleration of a
wise and liberal expert, Miss Twinkleton would rejoin, reddening:
'Or, my dear, you might propose to the person of the house a duck.'
'Well, Miss!' the Billickin would exclaim (still no word being
spoken by Rosa), 'you do surprise me when you speak of ducks! Not
to mention that they're getting out of season and very dear, it
really strikes to my heart to see you have a duck; for the breast,
which is the only delicate cuts in a duck, always goes in a
direction which I cannot imagine where, and your own plate comes
down so miserably skin-and-bony! Try again, Miss. Think more of
yourself, and less of others. A dish of sweetbreads now, or a bit
of mutton. Something at which you can get your equal chance.'
Occasionally the game would wax very brisk indeed, and would be
kept up with a smartness rendering such an encounter as this quite
tame. But the Billickin almost invariably made by far the higher
score; and would come in with side hits of the most unexpected and
extraordinary description, when she seemed without a chance.
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