John often urged her to drink fair, But she cared not a jot-- She loved to see that angel there, And therefore drain'd the pot. When John found all remonstrance vain, Another card he play'd, And where the angel stood so plain He had a devil portray'd. Joan saw the horns, Joan saw the tail, Yet still she stoutly quaff'd, And when her lips once touch'd the ale, She clear'd it at a draught. John stood with wonder petrified, His hair stood on his pate, "And why dost guzzle now," he cried, "At that enormous rate?" "Oh, John!" she said, "I'm not to blame-- I _can't in conscience_ stop-- For sure 'twould be a burning shame To leave the devil a drop." Changeable, versatile, inconstant Eusebius, where is now your burst of philanthropy--where is all your rage? Pretty havoc you would but now have made, had you been armed with thunder--thunder, I say, for yours would have been no silent devastation among the villains. No Warnerian silent blazeless destruction would suit your indignation--in open day, and with a shout, would you do it, and in such wise would you suffer, if needs must, with Ajax's prayer in your mouth--"+En de Phaei kai olesson+." But for a grand picture of a sweeping indignation, there is nothing so grand as that fine passage in the Psalms--"Let them be as the dust before the wind, and the angel of the Lord scattering them." Men and all their iniquities, once so mighty, so vast, but as grains less than grains of dust--all the clouds of hypocrisy dispersed in atoms before the fury of the storm of vengeance. You were, as you read, Eusebius, in honest rage. I could see you as in a picture, like the figure with the scourge in hand flying off the very ground, in Raffaelle's noble fresco, the Heliodorus; and now are you far more like a merryandrew in your mirth, and the quaint sly humour of the tale in verse has made you blind to the delinquencies of the quaffing Joan. Blind to their delinquencies! Stay your mirth a moment, Eusebius--are you not blind to your own? Now I remember me, you are a thief, Eusebius, however you may have settled that matter with your conscience. Have you read the proposed "Dog-bill?" Here's a pretty to do!--Eusebius convicted of dog-stealing--subject to the penalty of misdemeanour! "I!" you will say. Yes, you. You put it down, doubtless, in the catalogue of your virtues, as you did when you boasted to me that you had, by a lucky detection in probably the criminal's first offence, saved a fellow-creature from a course of crime. Do you remember your dog Chance? yes, _your_ dog, for so you called him--and, pray, how came you by him? This was your version. A regiment was marching by your neighbourhood, at the fag-end of which a soldier led a very fine spaniel by a piece of cord. You always loved dogs--did you not, you cunning Eusebius? You can put two and two together as well as most people. The dog had no collar.