Are you still 'blue-moulded for want of beating?'"
The tailor collected himself to make a reply; he put one leg out--the
very leg which he used to show in triumph to his friend; but, alas, how
dwindled! He opened his waistcoat, and lapped it round him, until he
looked like a weasel on its hind legs. He then raised himself up on his
tip toes, and, in an awful whisper, replied, "No!!! the devil a bit I'm
blue-mowlded for want of a batin."
The schoolmaster shook his head in his own miserable manner; but, alas!
he soon perceived that the tailor was as great an adept at shaking the
head as himself. Nay, he saw that there was a calamitous refinement--a
delicacy of shake in the tailor's vibrations, which gave to his own nod
a very commonplace character.
The next day the tailor took in his clothes; and from time to time
continued to adjust them to the dimensions of his shrinking person.
The schoolmaster and he, whenever they could steal a moment, met and
sympathized together. Mr. O'Connor, however, bore up somewhat better
than Neal. The latter was subdued in heart and in spirit; thoroughly,
completely, and intensely vanquished. His features became sharpened
by misery, for a termagant wife is the whetstone on which all the
calamities of a hen-pecked husband are painted by the devil. He no
longer strutted as he was wont to do; he no longer carried a cudgel
as if he wished to wage a universal battle with mankind.
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