strangers were ordered to withdraw--and 'twas well they did: for such an amazing uproar ensued among the committee, as soon as the five opposition members discovered, to their astonishment and disgust, that there was the least doubt among their opponents as to the establishment of agency, as would not, possibly, have tended to raise that committee, as a judicial body, in public estimation. After an hour and a half's absence, strangers were readmitted. Great was the rush--for the fate of the petition hung on the decision to be immediately pronounced. As soon as the counsel had taken their seats, and the eager, excited crowd been subdued into something like silence, the chairman, Sir Caleb Calf, with a flushed face, and a very uneasy expression, read from a sheet of foolscap paper, which he held in his hand, as follows:-- "Resolved--That the Petitioner's Counsel be directed to _proceed_ with evidence of AGENCY," [_i. e._ the committee were of opinion that no sufficient evidence had yet been given, to establish Messrs. Mudflint, Bloodsuck, and Centipede, as the agents of Mr. Titmouse, in the election for Yatton!!!] The five opposition members sat with stern indignant faces, all with their backs turned towards the chairman; and nothing but a very high tone of feeling, and chivalrous sense of their position, as members of a public committee of the House of Commons, prevented their repeating in public their fierce protest against the monstrous decision at which the committee, through the casting voice of the redoubtable chairman, had arrived. Their decision was not immediately understood or appreciated by the majority of those present. After a pause of some moments, and amid profound silence-- "Have I rightly understood the resolution of the committee, sir," inquired Mr. Berrington, with an amazed air, "that the evidence already adduced _is not sufficient_ to satisfy them as to the _agency_ of Messrs. Mudflint, Bloodsuck, and Centipede?" "The committee _meant_, sir, to express as much," replied the chairman, dryly, and he sealed a letter with affected indifference: _affected_, indeed! the letter being one addressed to a friend, to desire him forthwith to take a hostile message on his--the chairman's--behalf to Colonel D'Eresby, one of the committee, who had, during the discussion with closed doors, spoken his mind pretty freely concerning the conduct of the aforesaid chairman! "Good God!" exclaimed Mr. Berrington, (on receiving the chairman's answer to his inquiry,) in a tone of voice loud enough to be heard all over the room, "_neither would they believe though one rose from the dead_." "We'd better strike," said his juniors.