I rode about, and speechified, and everybody gullied, The tavern-keepers diddled, and the magistracy bullied; Like puppets were the townsfolk led in that show they call a raree; The Gotham sages were a joke to those of Canterbury. _With my coal-black beard, &c._ The theatre I next engaged, where I addressed the crowd, sirs, And on retrenchment and reform I spouted long and loud, sirs; On tithes and on taxation I enlarged with skill and zeal, sirs, Who so able as a Malta knight, the malt tax to repeal, sirs. _With my coal-black beard, &c._ As a candidate I then stepped forth to represent their city, And my non-election to that place was certainly a pity; For surely I the fittest was, and very proper, very, To represent the wisdom and the wit of Canterbury. _With my coal-black beard, &c._ At the trial of some smugglers next, one thing I rather queer did, And the justices upon the bench I literally _bearded_; For I swore that I some casks did see, though proved as clear as day, sirs, That I happened at the time to be some fifty miles away, sirs. _With my coal-black beard, &c._ This last assertion, I must own, was somewhat of a blunder, And for perjury indicted they compelled me to knock under; To my prosperous career this slight error put a stop, sirs, And thus _crossed_, the knight of Malta was at length obliged to _hop_, sirs. _With his coal-black beard, and purple cloak, jack-boots, and broad-brimmed castor, Good-by to the knight of Malta._ The knight sat down amidst the general plaudits of the company. The party, meanwhile, had been increased by the arrival of Luke and the sexton. The former, who was in no mood for revelry, refused to comply with his grandsire's solicitation to enter, and remained sullenly at the door, with his arms folded, and his eyes fixed upon Turpin, whose movements he commanded through the canvas aperture. The sexton walked up to Dick, who was seated at the post of honor, and, clapping him upon the shoulder, congratulated him upon the comfortable position in which he found him. "Ha, ha! Are you there, my old death's-head on a mop-stick?" said Turpin, with a laugh. "Ain't we merry mumpers, eh? Keeping it up in style. Sit down, old Noah--make yourself comfortable, Methusalem." "What say you to a drop of as fine Nantz as you ever tasted in your life, old cove?" said Zoroaster. "I have no sort of objection to it," returned Peter, "provided you will all pledge my toast." "That I will, were it old Ruffin himself," shouted Turpin.