"Blessed hif I knowed that ye iver understood Greek or Lating, ither, Jimmy," said an old man who sat observant of the reviewer in a corner, drinking beer from a pewter pot. "I thank ye all the same, Mr. Wilkins, but I don't _like_ to be interrupted when I'm speaking," answered the Most Worthy Grand. "You're right, Me Grand. Horder! horder!" shouted several indignant voices. "I wos goin' to say," continued the Grand, after taking a deep draught of the porter which foamed in the pewter pot on the table before him--"I wos goin' to say that the state of our neighbor, Fronse, just hover the water, is now a spektikle for mankind. There's a great hadoo about the Hemperor's 'elth; and I must say as how he is in a bad way by all accounts. Nobody knows wot his disease is. It may be liver; it may be kidneys. I might take the liberty of sayin', as a rule, kidneys is bad. No one knows wot would be the consequences if the Hemperor was to step out, wulgularly speakin'. It would p'r'aps be the cause of a general war in Europe. Hengland doesn't want any more wars. We 'ave 'ad enough of them. They does no good for the workin' man. ('Hear! hear!') We pays the piper when the dancin' is done; but we never dances ourselves." "True as the gospel, Jimmy," from a beer drinker. "Now, there's another question which we all 'ave heard of a good deal, and that's the Halabama claims. They are in a precious muddle, to be sure. They may be right and they may be wrong. But I must say that I don't see where the money is to come from to pay them." "We'll never pay them. We aint got the "dibs;" leastways, I won't pay any of it," says an irreverent young man whose face was quite flushed with strong drink. "Well, as far as that goes, if they are to be paid, we know it will come from the pockets of just such people as ourselves in the way of taxes. Its taxes halways." "I differ from the gentleman who preceded me altogether. Prussia must 'ave the left bank of the Rhine, and I'll put sixteen bullets in the Pope's heart. I tell ye, gentlemen, the Ekumenikal Council will be the downfall of the Romish religion. I'll put sixteen bullets in the Pope's heart," cried out a tall, thin-faced man in a half-clerical suit of black, who got on his feet, and while in the act of energetically expressing his feeling, by a wave of his right hand carried away a glass globe shading the gaslight above his head. The man was very drunk apparently, but by his language seemed to be a person of education. The "Beefy One," who sat by my side, and who had reached his third bottle of beer, whispered to me: "I say, yon is a fine fellow when he's sober, and can talk poetry by the yard, but he is very drunk, and when he's fuddled he will talk a man blind about the Pope. Will you have some beer? Do take a pot." It was with some trouble that the fiery Scotch orator was induced to sit down and defer his assault upon the Pope until a more fitting occasion.