 the table-beer
for then, and destroying my constitooshun?«
    »Go down stairs, you vicious boy,« said Mrs. Todgers, holding the door open.
»Do you hear me? Go along!«
    After two or three dexterous feints, he went, and was seen no more that
night, save once, when he brought up some tumblers and hot water, and much
disturbed the two Miss Pecksniffs by squinting hideously behind the back of the
unconscious Mrs. Todgers. Having done this justice to his wounded feelings, he
retired underground: where, in company with a swarm of black beetles and a
kitchen candle, he employed his faculties in cleaning boots and brushing clothes
until the night was far advanced.
    Benjamin was supposed to be the real name of this young retainer, but he was
known by a great variety of names. Benjamin, for instance, had been converted
into Uncle Ben, and that again had been corrupted into Uncle; which, by an easy
transition, had again passed into Barnwell, in memory of the celebrated relative
in that degree who was shot by his nephew George, while meditating in his garden
at Camberwell. The gentlemen at Todgers's had a merry habit, too, of bestowing
upon him, for the time being, the name of any notorious malefactor or minister;
and sometimes when current events were flat, they even sought the pages of
history for these distinctions; as Mr. Pitt, Young Brownrigg, and the like. At
the period of which we write, he was generally known among the gentlemen as
Bailey junior; a name bestowed upon him in contradistinction, perhaps, to Old
Bailey; and possibly as involving the recollection of an unfortunate lady of the
same name, who perished by her own hand early in life, and has been immortalised
in a ballad.
    The usual Sunday dinner-hour at Todgers's was two o'clock; a suitable time,
it was considered, for all parties; convenient to Mrs. Todgers, on account of
the baker's; and convenient to the gentlemen, with reference to their afternoon
engagements. But on the Sunday which was to introduce the two Miss Pecksniffs to
a full knowledge of Todgers's and its society, the dinner was postponed until
five, in order that everything might be as genteel as the occasion demanded.
    When the hour drew nigh, Bailey junior, testifying great excitement,
appeared in a complete suit of cast-off clothes several sizes too large for him,
and in particular, mounted a clean shirt of such extraordinary magnitude, that
one of the gentlemen (remarkable
