Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 21, 2025
Aspel was resolute, however; he would not sit down, though he had no objection to the mountain dew. Accordingly, the bottle was produced, and a full glass was poured out for Aspel, who quaffed off the pure spirit with a free-and-easy toss and smack of the lips, that might have rendered one of the beery old sea-kings envious.
Lifting the latch and entering, Aspel found himself confronted by Tottie Bones in her native home. It was a very small, desolate, and dirty home, and barely rendered visible by a thin "dip" stuck into an empty pint-bottle. Tottie opened her large eyes wide with astonishment, then laid one of her dirty little fingers on her rosy lips and looked imploringly at her visitor.
"Don't try to keep up with us," said Aspel to Tottie; "I must run. It may be fire!" "Oh! please, sir, don't leave me behind," pleaded the child. "All right we won't; kitch hold of my hand; give the other to Mr Aspel," said Peter Pax.
"Yes, sir, and pretty sharp work is needful when you consider that the mails we've got to send out daily from this office consist of over 5800 bags, weighing forty-three tons, while the mails received number more than 5500 bags. Speaks to a deal of correspondence that, don't it, sir?" "What! every day?" exclaimed Aspel in surprise.
"I mean," replied Bones, returning his stare with the utmost coolness, "that you can't give up drink, if you was to try ever so much. You're too far gone in it. I've tried it myself, many a time, and failed, though I've about as strong a will as your own maybe stronger." "We shall see," returned Aspel, as they moved on again and turned into the lane which led to the wretched abode of Bones.
It may be that other motives, besides those connected with George Aspel, induced the man in grey to visit the General Post-Office, but we do not certainly know. It is quite possible that a whole host of subsidiary and incidental cases on hand might have induced him to take up the Post-Office like a huge stone, wherewith to knock down innumerable birds at one and the same throw; we cannot tell.
Phil put down the required name, handed over the money, received back the change, inserted the order into a previously prepared letter, posted the same, and walked away from that office as tall as his friend George Aspel if not taller in sensation. Let us now follow our hero to the boy-messengers' room in the basement of St. Martin's-le-Grand.
Tottie To-o-o-o-tie's in the kitchen!" Little Pax heard and understood. In one moment he bounded through the blazing doorway and up the smoking stair. Just then the fire-escape came into view, towering up against the black sky. "Hold her, some one!" cried Aspel, dropping his poor burden into the ready arms of a policeman. "The boy's lost!" he exclaimed, leaping after Pax.
"If you saw your wife now, supposin' you had one, at the pint of death with hunger, an' you saw a loaf lyin' as didn't belong to you, would you let her die?" Aspel thought of May Maylands. "I don't know," he replied, "what I should do. All that I say is, that stealing is unjustifiable." The argument was stopped at this point by the entrance of a small telegraph message-boy.
"W'y, sir," said Bones, becoming a little more respectful in spite of himself, "you've no need to be ashamed of your appearance. There's not 'alf a dozen people in a mile walk in London as would look twice at you whatever appearance you cut so long as it was only disreputable." "Never mind push on," said Aspel sternly; "I am ashamed whether I have need to be or not. I'm a fool.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking