"My nephew--my nephew, Benjamin Brail, did you say?--Oh, murder, fire, and botheration of all sorts--spurs, sir?--spurs?--Hookey, but I'll find stronger fare than spurs for you--You are a robber, sir--a robber--Murphy, you villain--Murphy--Dennis--Potatoblossom--bring me a handsaw, till I cut his throat--or a gimblet--or any other deleterious eatable--Oh, you thieves of the world, why don't you come and help your master?--Lights, boys--lights--hubaboo!" By this I had contrived to wriggle out of my Irish pillory, and to withdraw my corpus into the house, where I crept behind a leaf of the door--any thing to be out of the row. I could now hear my uncle crawling about the dark room like the aforesaid lobster, disconsolate for the loss of its prey, arguing with himself aloud whether he were awake, or whether it was not all a _drame_, as he called it;--and then shouting for his servants at one moment, and stumbling against the table, or falling rattle over a lot of chairs, that all seemed to have placed themselves most provokingly in his way, the next. During his soliloquy, I heard Twig and Flamingo's suppressed laughter at the other end of the room. At length Mr Frenche thundered in his gropings against the sideboard, when such a clash and clang of glasses arose, as if he had been literally the bull in the china shop. "Ah," he said, "it must be all a drame, and looking at people drinking, has made me dry--so let me wet my whistle a bit--here's the beverage, so--now--ah, this is the rum bottle--I know it by the smell--and what the devil else should I know it by in the dark before tasting, I should like to know?--he! he!--if I could but lay my paw on a tumbler now, or a glass of any kind--not one to be found, I declare--Murphy, you villain, why don't you come when I call you, sirrah?"--There was now a concerto of coughing, and sneezing, and _oich, oiching_, and yawning, as if from beneath.--"Will these lazy rascals never make their appearance?" continued Mr Frenche, impatiently--"Well, I cannot find even a teacup to make some punch in--hard enough this in a man's own house, any how--but I have the materials--and--and--now, for the fun of the thing--I will mix it Irish fashion--deuce take me if I don't," and thereupon I heard him _gurgle, gurgle_ something out of one bottle--and then a long _gurgle, gurgle, gurgle_, out of another, apparently, for the gurgling was on different keys,--both followed by a long expiration. He then gave several jumps on the floor.