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After which he rubbed his fat legs as before, and jerking them at the knees to get the fire upon the yet unroasted parts, laughed as if somebody had tickled him. 'You're in spirits, Tugby, my dear, observed his wife. The firm was Tugby, late Chickenstalker. 'No, said Tugby. 'No. Not particular. I'm a little elewated. The muffins came so pat!
With that he chuckled until he was black in the face; and had so much ado to become any other colour, that his fat legs took the strangest excursions into the air. Nor were they reduced to anything like decorum until Mrs. Tugby had thumped him violently on the back, and shaken him as if he were a great bottle. 'Good gracious, goodness, lord-a-mercy bless and save the man! cried Mrs.
Tugby, that is, Chickenstalker, after thumping him violently on the back, and shaking him as if he were a bottle, was constrained to cry out, in great terror, "Good gracious, goodness, lord-a-mercy, bless and save the man! What's he a-doing?" To which all that Mr. Tugby can faintly reply, as he wipes his eyes, is, that he finds himself a little "elewated!"
He took to drinking, idling, bad companions: all the fine resources that were to be so much better for him than the Home he might have had. He lost his looks, his character, his health, his strength, his friends, his work: everything! 'He didn't lose everything, Mrs. Tugby, returned the gentleman, 'because he gained a wife; and I want to know how he gained her.
'What are workhouses made for? 'Not for that, said Mrs. Tugby, with great energy. 'Not for that! Neither did I marry you for that. Don't think it, Tugby. I won't have it. I won't allow it. I'd be separated first, and never see your face again. When my widow's name stood over that door, as it did for many years: this house being known as Mrs. As they would! And serve me right!
He sat softly whistling, and turning little drops of beer out of the tap upon the ground, until there was a perfect calm: when he raised his head, and said to Mrs. Tugby, late Chickenstalker: 'There's something interesting about the woman, even now. How did she come to marry him? 'Why that, said Mrs. Tugby, taking a seat near him, 'is not the least cruel part of her story, sir.
Her old face, which had been a plump and dimpled one before the changes which had come to pass, seemed to shine out of her as she said these words; and when she dried her eyes, and shook her head and her handkerchief at Tugby, with an expression of firmness which it was quite clear was not to be easily resisted, Trotty said, 'Bless her! Bless her!
If Tugby had been a little elevated in the parlour, he more than balanced that account by being not a little depressed in the shop, where he now stood staring at his wife, without attempting a reply; secretly conveying, however either in a fit of abstraction or as a precautionary measure all the money from the till into his own pockets, as he looked at her.
Tugby panted and grumbled after them at leisure: being rendered more than commonly short-winded by the weight of the till, in which there had been an inconvenient quantity of copper. Trotty, with the child beside him, floated up the staircase like mere air. 'Follow her! Follow her! Follow her! He heard the ghostly voices in the Bells repeat their words as he ascended.
Tugby, looking at the fire, and reverting to the cream and marrow of his temporary elevation. 'Hard weather indeed, returned his wife, shaking her head. 'Aye, aye! Years, said Mr. Tugby, 'are like Christians in that respect. Some of 'em die hard; some of 'em die easy. This one hasn't many days to run, and is making a fight for it. I like him all the better. There's a customer, my love!
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