One of the justices tried to speak, but even from the first it was all dumb show; and scarcely had he proceeded through two sentences, when his oration was extinguished as suddenly and by the same means as the conflagration of the Royal Palace at Lilliput. After many attempts to obtain a hearing, it became obvious that all chance of doing so in the schoolhouse was at an end; and so the usher, the justices, and the rest, adjourned to the next ale-house, where they had the usher's commission quietly read over in presence of the landlord and the waiter, and handed him over the keys of the house before the same witnesses; of all which, and of their previous deforcement by a mob of rapscallions, they took care to have an instrument regularly drawn out by a notary-public. Thereafter they ordered a rump and dozen, being confident that as the day was bitterly cold, and the snow some feet deep upon the ground, the courage of the rioters would be cooled before they had finished dinner; and so it was, for towards evening, the temperature having descended considerably beneath the freezing point, the mob, who had now exhausted their beer and gin, and who saw that there was no more fun to be expected for the day, began to disperse each man to his home, so that before nightfall the coast was clear; on which the justices, with the _posse comitatus_, escorted the usher to the schoolhouse, opened the door, put him formally in possession, and, wishing him much good of his new appointment, departed.