We all puffed our Havannahs with the utmost silence, as if we were so many Sachems at a palaver, listening to the narration which issued from the misty tabernacle in which Humpy Harlow was enveloped. He unfolded a tale of wondrous length, which we never interrupted. No sound was heard save that of the voice of Harlow, narrating the story which had to him been confided by the unknown Humphries, or the gentle gliding of the jug, an occasional tingle of a glass, and the soft suspiration of the cigar. On moved the story in its length, breadth, and thickness, for Harlow gave it to us in its full dimensions. He abated it not a jot. The firmness which we displayed was unequalled since the battle of Waterloo. We sat with determined countenances, exhaling smoke and inhaling punch, while the voice still rolled onward. At last Harlow came to an end; and a Babel of conversation burst from lips in which it had been so long imprisoned. Harlow looked proud of his feat, and obtained the thanks of the company, grateful that he had come to a conclusion. How we finished the potteen--converted my bottle of rum into a bowl--(for here Jack Ginger prevailed)--how Jerry Gallagher, by superhuman exertions, succeeded in raising a couple of hundred of oysters for supper--how the company separated, each to get to his domicile as he could--how I found, in the morning, my personal liberty outraged by the hands of that unconstitutional band of gens-d'armes created for the direct purposes of tyranny, and held up to the indignation of all England by the weekly eloquence of the _Despatch_--how I was introduced to the attention of a magistrate, and recorded in the diurnal page of the newspaper--all this must be left to other historians to narrate. CHAPTER V. WHAT STORY IT WAS THAT HUMPY HARLOW TOLD AT JACK GINGER'S. At three o'clock on the day after the dinner, Antony Harrison and I found ourselves eating bread and cheese--part of _the_ cheese--at Jack Ginger's. We recapitulated the events of the preceding evening, and expressed ourselves highly gratified with the entertainment. Most of the good things we had said were revived, served up again, and laughed at once more. We were perfectly satisfied with the parts which we had respectively played, and talked ourselves into excessive good-humour. All on a sudden Jack Ginger's countenance clouded. He was evidently puzzled; and sat for a moment in thoughtful silence. We asked him, with Oriental simplicity of sense, "Why art thou troubled?" and till a moment he answered-- "What _was_ the story which Humpy Harlow told us about eleven o'clock last night, just as Bob Burke was teeming the last jug?" "It began," said I, "with '_Humphries told me._'" "It did," said Antony Harrison, cutting a deep incision into the cheese. "I know it did," said Jack Ginger; "but what was it that Humphries had told him? I cannot recollect it if I was to be made Lord Chancellor."