A man usually receives some compensation for having gone through the penance of the chairman's duties. For the remainder of the evening he is entitled to the flattery of his companions, and generally receives it till they become tipsy and insubordinate. Tappitt had not the character of an intemperate man, but on this occasion he did exceed the bounds of a becoming moderation. The room was hot and the tobacco smoke was thick. The wine had been bad and the brandy was strong. Sharpit, too, urged him to new mixtures and stronger denunciations against Rowan, till at last, at eleven o'clock, when he took himself to the brewery, he was not in a condition proper for the father of such daughters or for the husband of such a wife. "Shall I see him home?" said the podgy grocer to Mr. Sharpit. Tappitt, with the suspicious quickness of a drunken man, turned sharply upon the podgy and abashed grocer, and abused him for his insolence. He then made his way out of the inn-yard, and along the High Street, and down Brewery Lane to his own door, knowing the way as well as though he had been sober, and passing over it as quickly. Nor did he fall or even stumble, though now and again he reeled slightly. And as he went the idea came strongly upon him that Sharpit was a dangerous man, and that perhaps at this very moment he, Tappitt, was standing on the brink of a precipice. Then he remembered that his wife would surely be watching for him, and as he made his first attempt to insert the latch-key into the door his heart became forgetful of the brandy, and sank low within his breast. How affairs went between him and Mrs. Tappitt on that night I will not attempt to describe. That she used her power with generosity I do not doubt. That she used it with discretion I am quite convinced. On the following morning at ten o'clock Tappitt was still in bed; but a note had been written by Mrs. T. to Messrs. Sharpit and Longfite, saying that the projected visit had, under altered circumstances, become unnecessary. That Tappitt's head was racked with pain, and his stomach disturbed with sickness, there can be no doubt, and as little that Mrs. T. used the consequent weakness of her husband for purposes of feminine dominion; but this she did with discretion and even with kindness. Only a word or two was said as to the state in which he had returned home,--a word or two with the simple object of putting that dominion on a firm basis. After that Mrs. Tappitt took his condition as an established fact, administered to him the comforts of her medicine-chest and teapot, excused his illness to the girls as having been produced by the fish, and never left his bedside till she had achieved her purpose. If ever a man got tipsy to his own advantage, Mr. Tappitt did so on that occasion. And if ever a man in that condition was treated with forbearing kindness by his wife, Mr. Tappitt was so treated then.