The things we do!

"You
exaggerate, indeed you do. The wine is not dear, not by any means so
expensive as you say."
"How much a glass, think you?" says Fred, filling another bumper. "A
half-crown, think ye?--a half-crown, Honeyman? By cock and pye, it is not
worth a bender." He says this in the manner of the most celebrated
tragedian of the day. He can imitate any actor, tragic or comic; any
known Parliamentary orator or clergyman; any saw, cock, cloop of a cork
wrenched from a bottle and guggling of wine into the decanter afterwards,
bee buzzing, little boy up a chimney, etc. He imitates people being ill
on board a steam-packet so well that he makes you die of laughing: his
uncle the Bishop could not resist this comic exhibition, and gave Fred a
cheque for a comfortable sum of money; and Fred, getting cash for the
cheque at the Cave of Harmony, imitated his uncle the Bishop and his
Chaplain, winding up with his Lordship and Chaplain being unwell at sea--
the Chaplain and Bishop quite natural and distinct.


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