"But that's nothing to what happened in London," continued the doctor. "They experimented there the other day with a battery of such power, that the man who was hanged absolutely jumped up, seized a scalpel from the table, and making a rush on the assembled Faculty of London, cleared the theatre in less than no time; dashed into the hall; stabbed the porter who attempted to stop him; made a chevy down the south side of Leicester Square; and as he reached the corner, a woman, who was carrying tracts published by the Society for the Suppression of Vice, shrieked at beholding a man in so startling a condition, and fainted; he, with a presence of mind perfectly admirable, whipped the cloak from her back, and threw it round him, and scudding through the tortuous alleys which abound in that neighbourhood, made his way to the house where the learned Society of Noviomagians hold their convivial meetings, and, telling the landlord that he was invited there to dinner as a curiosity, he gained admittance, and, it is supposed, took his opportunity for escaping, for he has not since been heard of." "Good Heaven!" gasped M'Garry; "and do you believe that, doctor?" "Most firmly, sir! My belief is, that galvanism is, in fact, the original principle of vitality." "Should we not rejoice, doctor," cried M'Garry, "at this triumph of science?" "I don't think you should, Mister M'Garry," said the doctor, gravely; "for it would utterly destroy _your_ branch of the profession: pharmacopolists, instead of compounding medicine, must compound with their creditors; they are utterly ruined. Mercury is no longer in the ascendent; all doctors have to do now is to carry a small battery about them, a sort of galvanic pocket-pistol, I may say, and restore the vital principle by its application." "You are not serious, doctor?" said M'Garry, becoming _very_ serious, with that wise look so peculiar to drunken men. "Never more serious in my life, sir." "That would be dreadful!" said M'Garry. "_Shocking_, you mean," said the doctor. "Leave off your confounded scientifics, there," shouted Murphy from the head of the table, "and let us have a song." "I can't sing, indeed, Mister Murphy," said M'Garry, who became more intoxicated every moment; for he continued to drink, having overstepped the boundary which custom had prescribed to him. "I didn't ask you, man," said Murphy; "but my darling fellow, Ned here, will gladden our hearts and ears with a stave." "Bravo!" was shouted round the table, trembling under the "thunders of applause" with which heavy hands made it ring again; and "Ned of the Hill!" "Ned of the Hill!" was vociferated with many a hearty cheer about the board that might indeed be called "festive." "Well," said O'Connor, "since you call upon me in the name of Ned of the Hill, I'll give you a song under that very title. Here's Ned of the Hill's own shout;" and in a rich, manly voice he sang, with the fire of a bard, these lines:--