From what Zack had told him of Mat's lighter peculiarities of character, he anticipated a somewhat uncivilized reception from the elder of his two hosts; and when he got to Kirk Street, he certainly found that his expectations were, upon the whole, handsomely realized.
On mounting the dark and narrow wooden staircase of the tobacconist's shop, his nose was greeted by a composite smell of fried liver and bacon, brandy and water, and cigar smoke, pouring hospitably down to meet him through the crevices of the drawing-room door. When he got into the room, the first object that struck his eyes at one end of it, was Zack, with his hat on, vigorously engaged in freshening up the dusty carpet with a damp mop; and Mat, at the other, presiding over the frying-pan, with his coat off, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his shoulders, a glass of steaming hot grog on the chimney-piece above him, and a long pewter toasting-fork in his hand.
"Here's the honored guest of the evening arrived before I've swabbed down the decks," cried Zack, jogging his friend in the ribs with the long handle of the mop.
"How are you, to-night?" said Mat, with familiar ease, not moving from the frying-pan, but getting his right hand free to offer to Mr. Blyth by taking the pewter toasting-fork between his teeth. "Sit down anywhere you like; and just holler through the crack in the floor, under the bearskins there, if you want anything out of the Bocker-shop, below."--("He means Tobacco when he says Bocker," interposed Zack, parenthetically.) "Can you set your teeth in a baked tater or two?" continued Mat, tapping a small Dutch oven before the fire with his toasting-fork. "We've got you a lot of fizzin' hot liver and bacon to ease down the taters with what you call a relish. Nice and streaky, ain't it?" Here the host of the evening stuck his fork into a slice of bacon, and politely passed it over his shoulder for Mr. Blyth to inspect, as he stood bewildered in the middle of the room.
"Oh, delicious, delicious!" cried Valentine, smelling as daintily at the outstretched bacon as if it had been a nosegay. "Really, my dear sir--." He said no more; for at that moment he tripped himself up upon one of some ten or a dozen bottle-corks which lay about on the carpet where he was standing. There is very little doubt, if Zack had not been by to catch him, that Mr. Blyth would just then have concluded his polite remarks on the bacon by measuring his full length on the floor.
"Why don't you put him into a chair?" growled Mat, looking round reproachfully from the frying-pan, as Valentine recovered his erect position again with young Thorpe's assistance.
"I was just going to swab up that part of the carpet when you came in," said Zack, apologetically, as he led Mr. Blyth to a chair.
"Oh don't mention it," answered Valentine, laughing. "It was all my awkwardness."
He stopped abruptly again. Zack had placed him with his back to the fire, against a table covered with a large and dirty cloth which flowed to the floor, and under which, while he was speaking, he had been gently endeavoring to insinuate his legs. Amazement bereft him of the power of speech when, on succeeding in this effort, he found that his feet came in contact with a perfect hillock of empty bottles, oyster-shells, and broken crockery, heaped under the table. "Good gracious me! I hope I'm doing no mischief!" exclaimed Valentine, as a miniature avalanche of oyster-shells clattered down on his intruding foot, and a plump bottle with a broken neck rolled lazily out from under the table-cloth, and courted observation on the open floor.
"Kick about, dear old fellow, kick about as much as you please," cried Zack, seating himself opposite Mr. Blyth, and bringing down a second avalanche of oyster-shells to encourage him. "The fact is, we are rather put to it for space here, so we keep the cloth always laid for dinner, and make a temporary lumber-room of the place under the table. Rather a new idea that, I think--not tidy perhaps, but original and ingenious, which is much better."
"Amazingly ingenious!" said Valentine, who was now beginning to be amused as well as surprised by his reception in Kirk Street. "Rather untidy, perhaps, as you say, Zack; but new, and not disagreeable I suppose when you're used to it. What I like about all this," continued Mr. Blyth, rubbing his hands cheerfully, and kicking into view another empty bottle, as he settled himself in his chair--"What I like about this is, that it's so thoroughly without ceremony. Do you know I really feel at home already, though I never was here before in my life?--Curious, Zack, isn't it?"
"Look out for the taters!" roared Mat suddenly from the fireplace. Valentine started, first at the unexpected shout just behind him, next at the sight of a big truculently-knobbed potato which came flying over his head, and was dexterously caught, and instantly deposited on the dirty table-cloth by Zack. "Two, three, four, five, six," continued Mat, keeping the frying-pan going with one hand, and tossing the baked potatoes with the other over Mr. Blyth's head, in quick succession for young Thorpe to catch. "What do you think of our way of dishing up potatoes in Kirk Street?" asked Zack in great triumph. "It's a little sudden when you're not used to it," stammered Valentine, ducking his head as each edible missile flew over him--"but it's free and easy--it's delightfully free and easy." "Ready there with your plates. The liver's a coming," cried Mat in a voice of martial command, suddenly showing his great red-hot perspiring face at the table, as he wheeled round from the fire, with the hissing frying-pan in one hand and the long toasting-fork in the other. "My dear sir, I'm shocked to see you taking all this trouble," exclaimed Mr. Blyth; "do pray let me help you!" "No, I'm damned if I do," returned Mat with the most polite suavity and the most perfect good humor. "Let him have all the trouble, Blyth," said Zack; "let him help you, and don't pity him. He'll make up for his hard work, I can tell you, when he sets in seriously to his liver and bacon. Watch him when he begins--he bolts his dinner like the lion in the Zoological Gardens."
Mat appeared to receive this speech of Zack's as a well-merited compliment, for he chuckled at young Thorpe and winked grimly at Valentine, as he sat down bare-armed to his own mess of liver and bacon. It was certainly a rare and even a startling sight to see this singular man eat. Lump by lump, without one intervening morsel of bread, he tossed the meat into his mouth rather than put it there--turned it apparently once round between his teeth--and then voraciously and instantly swallowed it whole. By the time a quarter of Mr. Blyth's plateful of liver and bacon, and half of Zack's had disappeared, Mat had finished his frugal meal; had wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and the back of his hand on the leg of his trousers; had mixed two glasses of strong hot rum-and-water for himself and Zack; and had set to work on the composition of a third tumbler, into which sugar, brandy, lemon-juice, rum, and hot water all seemed to drop together in such incessant and confusing little driblets, that it was impossible to tell which ingredient was uppermost in the whole mixture.