“Then let me tell you, madam,” said I, with the voice of one determined to strike terror into her heart--“let me tell you; and may my words have the power to awaken you, even now, to the dreadful consequences of what you are about!” “Shalley! Shalley!” cried she in amazement, “is this gentleman deranged, or is it but the passing effect of your conviviality?” And with this she swept out of the room, leaving me there alone, for I now perceived--what seemed also to have escaped her--that the Minister had slipped quietly away some time before, and was doubtless at that same moment in the profoundest of slumbers. I took my departure at once. There was no leave-taking to delay me, and I left the house in a mood little according with the spirit of one who had partaken of its hospitalities; I am constrained to admit I was the very reverse of satisfied with myself. It was cowardly and mean of me to wreak my anger on that old woman, and not upon him who was the really great offender. He it was I should have arraigned; and with the employment of a little artifice and some tact, how terrible I might have made even my jesting levity! how sarcastic my sneers at fashionable vice! Affecting utter ignorance about his life and habits, I could have incidentally thrown out little episodes of all the men who have wrecked their fortunes by abandoned habits. I would have pointed to this man who made a brilliant opening in the House, and that who had acquired such celebrity at the Bar; I would have shown the rising statesman tarnished, the future chief justice disqualified; I would have said, “Let no man, however modest his character or unfrequented his locality, imagine that the world takes no note of his conduct; in every class he is judged by his peers, and you and I, Doubleton, will as assuredly be arraigned before the bar of society as the pickpocket will be charged before the beak!”