"if I can provoke it; only prepare your ethics and your ears for
a slight shock; "and immediately approaching an old fresh-water dragon,
who sat behind an adjoining stall, with a countenance spirited in the
~303~~extreme, and glowing with all the beautiful varieties of the
ultra-marine and vermilion, produced by the all-potent properties of
Hodge's full-proof, she proceeded to cheapen the head and shoulders of a
fine fish that lay in front of her, forcing her fingers under the gills,
according to the approved custom of good housewives, to ascertain if it
was fresh.

[Illustration: page303]

After a parley as to price, Lady C---- hinted that she doubted its being
perfectly sweet: the very suspicion of vending an unsavoury article
roused the old she-dragon at once into one of the most terrific passions
imaginable, and directing all her ire against the ladies, she poured
forth a volley of abuse fiery and appalling as the lava of a volcano,
which concluded as follows.--"Not sweet, you ----," said the offended
deity; "how can I answer for its sweetness, when you have been tickling
his gills with your stinking paws 1 " _(See Plate.)_ The marchioness
retreated at the first burst of the storm, but Lady C----continued to
provoke the old naiad of the shambles, till she had fully satisfied her
humour. Again safely escorted home by the liveried Mercury, the ladies
thought to have enjoyed their joke in perfect security; but what was
their astonishment, when on meeting the marquis and a select party at
dinner, to find the identical fish served up at their own table, and the
marquis amusing his friends by relating the whole circumstances of
the frolic, as having occurred to two ladies of distinction during the
laughter-loving days of Charles the Second. I need not animadvert upon
the peculiar situation of the ladies, who, blushing through a crimson
veil of the deepest hue, bore the raillery of the party assembled with
as much good sense as good nature; acknowledging the frolic, and joining
in the laugh the joke produced. Beneath, you have one of our facetious
friend Bob Transit's humorous sketches of an incident said to have
occurred near B---- H----: in which an eccentric ~304~~lady chose to
call up the servants in the dead of the night, order out the carriage,
and mounting the box herself, insisted upon giving the footman, who had
been somewhat tardy in leaving his bed, a gentle airing in his shirt.

[Illustration: page304]