"I think so, too," said Mr. Berrington; adding, as he turned towards the committee with an air of undisguised disgust, "I protest, sir, that never in the whole course of my experience have I been so astounded as I am at the decision to which the committee has just come. Probably, under these circumstances, the committee will be pleased to adjourn till the morning, to give us an opportunity of considering the course we shall pursue." (This produced a great sensation.) "Certainly, let it be so," replied the chairman, blandly, yet anxiously; and the committee broke up. Before they met again, three shots a-piece had been exchanged between the chairman and Colonel D'Eresby--"happily without effect," and the parties left the ground in as hostile a spirit as they had reached it. I will say for the colonel, that he was a plain, straightforward soldier, who did not understand nonsense, nor could tolerate coquetting with an oath. "Of course the petition is dropped?" said Mr. Berrington, bitterly, as soon as all were assembled in the evening, in consultation at his chambers. "Of course," was the answer, in a sufficiently melancholy tone. "So help me heaven!" said Mr. Berrington, "I feel disposed to say I will never again appear before a committee. This sort of thing cannot go on much longer! To think that every man of that committee is sworn before God to do his duty! I'll take care to strike every one of those six men off from any future list that _I_ may have to do with!" "I can say only," remarked the second counsel, a calm and experienced lawyer, "that, in my opinion, had all of us sat down to frame, beforehand, a perfect case of agency--with facts at will--we could never have framed one stronger than the one to-day declared insufficient." "I have been in seven other petitions," said Mr. Berrington, "this very week; but there the sitting members were Tories: Gracious Heaven! what facts have been _there_ held sufficient proof of agency!--The _Barnard Castle_ committee yesterday held that to have been seen once shaking hands in a pastry-cook's shop with the sitting member, was sufficient evidence of _agency_--and we've lost the seat! In the _Cucumber_ committee, a man who by chance stood once under a doorway with the sitting member, in a sudden shower of rain--was held thereby to have become his agent; and we _there_ also lost the seat!--Faugh! what would foreigners say if they heard such things?" "It's perhaps hardly worth mentioning," said Mr. Parkinson; "but this afternoon I happened to see Mr. O'Gibbet dining with Mr. O'Doodle, Mr. Hubbaboo, and Mr. M'Squash, off pork and greens, at the Jolly Thieves' Tavern, in Dodge Street----I--I--they were talking together very eagerly"----