At the same meeting Lawler gave a rather remarkable address, in the course of which he said the time had nearly arrived for the annual meeting of their State Convention at Pittsburg, and he was requested, through a letter from Barney Dolan, County Delegate, to advise his division members of the necessity for raising—the amount and the request to apply to all the bodies in Schuylkill County—the sum of nine dollars toward paying the Delegate’s expenses to the west, and also to New York. In the last-named place he would see the National Secretary, on important business. Without this action it would be impossible for the Division to secure the “goods”—signs and passwords—for the current quarter; and Mike eloquently urged that it was always desirable to keep the body in fair standing with the State and National officials. The pompous Bodymaster, still suffering considerably from his wound, kept his chair while he enlarged upon the prospect before the brotherhood. He believed, if the fraternity would stand by him, he could swell their ranks to at least one hundred good men and true, before the commencement of another year. Of course the speech, or talk, was purely conversational, rough and uncouth, and not particularly coherent, but it touched its hearers and was received with applause—which, however, was necessarily suppressed, because of the family being so near. It was not long, after the close of the harangue, before the needed funds were in the Bodymaster’s possession. The meeting closed soon afterward, and the hours following to midnight were passed in carousal, singing, and card-playing, when the house was deserted, the doors fastened, and the Lawler family presently dreaming the dreams of the just.