Cocktail Talk: Our Mutual Friend, Part VI
Okay, I couldn’t let another reading of the Dickens novel Our Mutual Friend (I think this is reading number four, or perhaps number five), without one more Cocktail Talk, this one featuring one of my favorite characters (well, there are many!), the Inspector, who isn’t a main character by any means. But is a good one! And likes his flip, which I’m fond of too (I’m also fond of people who go and read all the Our Mutual Friend Cocktail Talk Posts, like you).
Mr Inspector immediately slipped into the bar, and sat down at the side of the half-door, with his back towards the passage, and directly facing the two guests. ‘I don’t take my supper till later in the night,’ said he, ‘and therefore I won’t disturb the compactness of the table. But I’ll take a glass of flip, if that’s flip in the jug in the fender.’
‘That’s flip,’ replied Miss Abbey, ‘and it’s my making, and if even you can find out better, I shall be glad to know where.’ Filling him, with hospitable hands, a steaming tumbler, Miss Abbey replaced the jug by the fire; the company not having yet arrived at the flip-stage of their supper, but being as yet skirmishing with strong ale.
‘Ah–h!’ cried Mr Inspector. ‘That’s the smack! There’s not a Detective in the Force, Miss Abbey, that could find out better stuff than that.’
‘Glad to hear you say so,’ rejoined Miss Abbey. ‘You ought to know, if anybody does.’
–Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend
