And these interruptions, I am sorry to say, continued, notwithstanding the remonstrances which Mr. Hughes addressed almost pathetically to John Swillers of the Golden Posts, as a respectable citizen of Cardyllian, one from whose position the police were led to expect assistance and the populace an example. There was something in these expostulations which struck John Swillers, for he would look with a tipsy solemnity in Hughes's face while he delivered them, and once took his hand, rather affectionately, and said, "That's your sort." But invariably these unpleasant interpolations were resumed, and did not cease until this moral exhibition had ended with the last verse of the temperance song, chanted by the deputation with great vigour, in unison, and which, as the reader will perceive, had in it a Bacchanalian character, which struck even the gravest listeners as a hollow mockery:-- Refreshing more than sinful swipes, The weary man Who quaffs a can, That sparkling foams through leaden pipes. CHORUS. Let every man Then, fill his can, And fill the glass Of every lass In brimming bumpers sparkling clear, To pledge the health of Verney's Peer! And then came a chill and ghastly "hip-hip, hurrah," and with some gracious inquiries on Lord Verney's part, as to the numbers, progress, and finances of "their interesting association," and a subscription of ten pounds, which Mr. John Swillers took leave to remark, "wouldn't be laid out on water, by _no_ means," the viscount, with grand and radiant Mr. Larkin at his elbow, and frequently murmuring in his ear--to the infinite disgust of my friend, Wynne Williams, the Cardyllian attorney, thus out-strutted and out-crowed on his own rustic elevation--was winning golden opinions from all sorts of men.