Fourteen women;
I wish you could ha' heard 'em, Sammy. There they was,
a-passin' resolutions, and wotin' supplies, and all sorts o' games.
Well, what with your mother-in-law a-worrying me to go, and
what with my looking for'ard to seein' some queer starts if I did,
I put my name down for a ticket; at six o'clock on the Friday
evenin' I dresses myself out wery smart, and off I goes with the
old 'ooman, and up we walks into a fust-floor where there was
tea-things for thirty, and a whole lot o' women as begins
whisperin' to one another, and lookin' at me, as if they'd never
seen a rayther stout gen'l'm'n of eight-and-fifty afore. By and by,
there comes a great bustle downstairs, and a lanky chap with a
red nose and a white neckcloth rushes up, and sings out, "Here's
the shepherd a-coming to wisit his faithful flock;" and in comes
a fat chap in black, vith a great white face, a-smilin' avay like
clockwork. Such goin's on, Sammy! "The kiss of peace," says the
shepherd; and then he kissed the women all round, and ven he'd
done, the man vith the red nose began. I was just a-thinkin'
whether I hadn't better begin too--'specially as there was a wery
nice lady a-sittin' next me--ven in comes the tea, and your
mother-in-law, as had been makin' the kettle bile downstairs.
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