“Come here, Tom, come here,” said Whiffle, in a whisper. We were now directly under the piazza of the fine house, in the first floor of which some gay scene was enacting. “Here, Tom, here--now stand there--hold by that pillar there. I say, Transom, give me a lift.” “Can’t, Whiffle, can’t, for the soul of me, Peregrine, my dear--but I see, I see.” With that the gallant captain got down on all fours; Whiffle, a small light man, got on his back, and, with the aid of Bang and Fyall, managed to scramble up on my shoulders, where he stood, holding by the window sill above, with a foot on each side of my head. His little red face was thus raised flush with the window sill, so that he could see into the dark piazza on the first floor, and right through into the magnificent and sparkling drawing room beyond. “Now tell us what’s to be seen,” said Aaron. “Stop, stop,” rejoined Whiffle--“My eye, what a lot of splendid women no men--a regular lady party--Hush! a song.” A harp was struck, and a symphony of Beethoven’s played with great taste--A song, low and melancholy, from two females followed. “The music of the spheres!” quoth Whiffle. We were rapt--we had been inspired before--and, drunk as we were, there we sat or stood, as best suited us, exhibiting the strange sight of a cluster of silent tipsy men. At length, at one of the finest swells, I heard a curious gurgling sound overhead, as if some one was being gagged, and I fancied Peregrine became lighter on my shoulders--Another fine dieaway note--I was sure of it. “Bang, Bang--Fyall--He is evaporating with delight--no weight at all, growing more and more ethereal--lighter and lighter, as I am a gentleman he is off--going, going, gone--exhaled into the blue heavens, by all that is wonderful!” Puzzled beyond measure, I stept hurriedly back, and capsized over the captain, who was still enacting the joint-stool on all-fours behind me, by which Whiffle had mounted to my crosstrees, and there we rolled in the sand, master and man. “Murdered, Tom Cringle--murdered--you have hogged me like the old Ramilies--broke my back, Tom--spoiled my quadrilling for ever and a day; d----n the judge’s ice though, and the saw particularly.” “Where is he--where is Whiffle?” enquired all hands, in a volley. “The devil only knows,” said I; “he has flown up into the clouds, catch him who can. He has left this earth anyhow, that is clear.”