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''Not Income-tax? cried His Majesty, hastily removing his pipe from his lips. 'No, no, said I. 'Water-rate? said His Majesty. 'No, no, I returned. 'Gas? Assessed? Sewers? said His Majesty. 'You misunderstand me, I replied, soothingly. 'Not that sort of collector at all: a collector of facts.
"The man called for the water-rate to-day; but I should like to know how people are to pay taxes, who throw away five pounds to every fellow that asks them? "Perhaps you don't know that Jack, this morning, knocked his shuttlecock through his bedroom window. I was going to send for the glazier to mend it; but after you lent that five pounds I was sure we couldn't afford it.
Maldon is not at home, sir," she said, with insinuating civility; "but if it's for the water-rate, he requested me to say that " She was interrupted by little George Talboys, who scrambled down from the high chair upon which he had been perched, and ran to Robert Audley.
There is not one of the circumstances of this capture of streams the company, the water-rate, and the rest that is not a sign of the ill-luck of modern devices in regard to style.
'Why really, sir, to tell you the truth I don't know what to say. Of course the windows must be seen to. The fact is, sir, if you felt disposed to do that at your own expense, and and to have the room cleaned, and and, let us say, to bear half the water-rate whilst you are here, why, really, I hardly feel justified in asking anything more.
Here the glib politician crying his legislative panaceas, and here the peripatetic Cheap-Jack holding aloft his quack cures for human ills. Here the sleek capitalist and there the sinewy laborer; here the man of science and here the shoe-back; here the poet and here the water-rate collector; here the cabinet minister and there the ballet-dancer.
"I met the postman as I was coming along," he said, handing me a blue envelope, "and he gave me this, for you." I saw it was an application for the water-rate. "We must make a stand against this," he continued. "That's for water to the 29th September. You've no right to pay it in June."
'I have known divine actresses before now, sir, I used to collect at least I used to CALL for and very often call for the water-rate at the house of a divine actress, who lived in my beat for upwards of four year but never no, never, sir of all divine creatures, actresses or no actresses, did I see a diviner one than is Henrietta Petowker.
Newman Noggs scrambled in violent haste upstairs with the steaming beverage, which he had so unceremoniously snatched from the table of Mr Kenwigs, and indeed from the very grasp of the water-rate collector, who was eyeing the contents of the tumbler, at the moment of its unexpected abstraction, with lively marks of pleasure visible in his countenance.
Ah, youth, youth! as the poet admirably says, Miss Hugonin, the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts, but its visions of existence are rose-tinged and free from care, and its conception of the responsibilities of manhood such as taxes and the water-rate I may safely characterise as extremely sketchy. But pray be seated, Miss Hugonin," Petheridge Jukesbury blandly urged.
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