that, all skeptic as he was, Fuzboz must have acknowledged in his heart that his making the dumb speak was nothing less than a miracle!

Five o'clock at length arrived, and with it the guests. Lukewarm dishes with tin covers were placed on the table; and those most patriotic of all sounds, the drawing of corks and clatter of knives and forks, were heard.

"You don't know me, sir, do you?" asked a man in a bottle-green coat, gilt buttons, and a long, capsicumcoloured scorbutic face, who was shovelling knifeloads of cod into his mouth, as he sat on one side of Mr. Frederic Feedwell.

Frederic had a mind to be facetious, and therefore replied,

"Yes, you are a fishmonger."

"Well, now, so I am; I shouldn't have thought as you'd have remembered me, Tim Sounds, the fishmonger in Hungerford Market. Don't you remember a tiff you and I had once about the price of a turbot, the time as you fought that popgun duel with Muster Jackson? Well, that very day, not knowing whether you'd live to eat it, that French chap as you had for a cook-why, catch me, if that ain't he a stanning behind your chair now! well, he comed down to the market and hordered a turbot, and you said the lobster sauce of it warn't good, and refused to pay more nor thirty shillings for it; so I was obleged to take the law on But at a time like this, sir, when the freedom of hour country, hand the liberties of Henglishmen his, I trust, secured by the glorus result of this day's 'lection, I should not call myself a man if I wasn't willing to drown hall hanimosities in the sea of reconciliation! So I shall be wery 'appy to take vine with you, sir, hand drink to forget and forgive! that's my way of doing business!"

you.

So saying, Mr. Sounds poured out a glass of cape Madeira, that had assumed the travelling title of sherry, and having given notice of its descent by a loud smack of the lips, again turned to Frederic, and patronizingly inquired whether he should help him to cod.

56 Thank you; I ne-ne-ne-never eat cod," said he; "I only take the oyster sauce;" a fact that he clearly demonstrated by conveying the whole contents of a tureen that Horsdœuvre had just brought him into his

own plate, to the great dismay of Mr. Wrigglechops, who sat within two of him, with his fish cooling before him, in anxious expectation of its "old familiar friends," the oysters.

"Come, come, fair play's a jewel, as the fox said to the goose," cried Mr. Sounds, eying the diorama of the rocher de cancale on Frederic's plate. "Munoply his the distruction of trade; hif hevery one vas to turn themselves hinto hoyster-beds as you do, what would become of the cods? Vy, the sea vould be hover pop'lated; and that would be a pretty business, beyond the power of the government to reg'late."

"Let us hope, Mr. what name may I admire your sound sense by?" parenthesized Frederic.

"You've hit it, sir-Sound. My name is Sounds, sir, has I told ee before. Jacob Sounds, of No. · Hungerford Market, London; and 45 Westgate-street, Triverton."

"I was going to observe, Mr. Cod Sounds-"

Jacob, sir, if you please."

"Je-Je-Je-Jacob Sounds, that no doubt, were the marine over-population that you dread to ensue, there would be some ultra-marine Malthus and Martineau found among the whales that would set it all to rights; but with such a member as yours," added Mr. Frederic Feedwell, who never could resist a sneer at his best friends, "earth, air, and water will all be well regulated."

Why, certainly, he's a thorough-going Reformer, as thinks nothink of his hown interests compared to the people's; for he told us so in his speech to-day."

"And what stronger proof of his integrity can you require ?" smiled Frederic. "I'd advise you to make the most of him, for you never can hope to get another like him!"

"I don't say that neither," deprecated Mr. Sounds; "for it's my maxim that there's as good fish in the sea as never vas caught; and reform is a good strong net, as catches hall sorts of hodd fish. So ve'll ope for the best."

"Y a-t-il du gibier ?" whispered Frederic to Horsdœuvre.

66

Oui, de potence, je croi, monsieur," replied that distinguished artiste; "for one man at de oder table, when I go just now to ask for some of de beuf Anglois dat VOL. II.-Y

have been hanged, for Monsieur le Major Nonplus, he say to me if I was Jaques Ketch: mais ils sont tous des politiques polisson ici je croi; moi j'aime les politiques au riz; comment appeler-vous cela, au riz, Tory? ah, out, Tory, c'est ça."

"Tait toi," said Frederic; "and take these beignets to Mr. Fuzboz, that gentleman opposite."

"Ah, oui, le monsieur avec le nez bémolisé."

"Mr. Mayor," said Mr. Chute, the cheesemonger, protruding his chin across the table, “the pleasure of a glass of wine with you?"

"With pleasure, Mr. Chule."
"Your good health, sir.”
"The same to you, sir."

"I think I saw your lady, Mr. Wrigglechops, on the hustings this morning. Mrs. Churle and my girls was just five minutes too late to get a good place; however, they'll hear the speeches to-night."

Mrs. Wrigglechops was also to hear the speeches that night; and it was just possible she might at that very moment be within earshot, behind the screen. So the major replied, in a much louder tone than his usual consort pitch:

"Yes, sir, thanks to Mrs. Wrigglechops, no one is ever too late in her house; everything is like clockwork there."

66

Very true," chuckled Mr. Tymmons to Mr. Snooks, the shoemaker; “and I'm sure he and she are the clock itself; for when her hand is at strike, he's always silent. Ha! ha ha!"

Here the din of voices, and clatter of knives, plates, and glasses, became tremendous, and precluded all conversation but that of a complimentary nature, which, the louder it is uttered, the better.

"What a fine boy that do grow of yours at the Blue Coat School," bellowed Mr. Scraggs, the butcher, to Mr. Grain, the glazier.

Lawr, do you think so?" replied Mr. Grain; "his mother and I thinks him quite a ruffian; he eats tremenjus!"

Well, I was thinking," said Scraggs, " as you had had more meat since he've been home; but, depend upon it, Grain, it's a wicious way of bringing hup the rising genration, not to let 'em ave plenty of wittles, specially meat; and that's the reason as I don't prove of the New Poor-laws."

"Very true," said Mr. Butts, the brewer; "meat and plenty of beer is the best thing you can give a child, rely upon it."

"Give them plenty of beer," said Mr. Tymmons, “and then I suppose you mean to say nothing will ever ale them! he he! he he!"

66

One of those sudden and awful silences that sometimes take place in a crowd now ensued, and betrayed Mr. Tymmons ha! ha! rig, all by himself; Non nobis domini," was then played, the cloth was removed, the vice-president rose, and, thumping three times distinctly on the table, cried out,

"Gentlemen, charge your glasses."

"That wee'l be sure to do," whispered Mr. Lamb, the landlord, to Mr. Brown, the wine-merchant.

"The Queen," was then drank, and the national anthem played; next followed,

Then

"The Duchess of Kent and the royal family." came "Lord Melford and her majesty's ministers;"

three times three.

But the vice-president begged to propose an amendment, that Lord Melford's health might again be drank by itself.

Unbounded applause.

AIR,

"'Mid pleasures and palaces."

"And now, gentlemen," said Mr. Gullwell, the vicepresident, again rising, who, with a white pocket-handkerchief in his right hand, accompanied his periods by occasionally shifting the wine-glasses before him, and changing the position, first of his right foot and then of his left, much after the manner of the late lamented Mr. Matthews, in his inimitable "At homes." "And now, gentlemen, often as it has been my grateful pride to address you, upon no former occasion did I ever feel such pride and such gratitude as I do on the present" (hear! hear! hear!); "for to-night we are met to celebrate, for the fourth time, the return" (for the loyal and independent borough of Triverton) "of a member who, whether we view him in the private life which he endears or the public one which he adorns, alike must command our esteem, our admiration, and our gratitude!" (Hear! hear! hear! and tremendous thumping of the table.) "Gentlemen, we live in times when, as the hero of Trafalgar proclaimed,

"England expects every man to do his duty;' and when was England ever yet disappointed in such an expectation? The men of Triverton, as the termination of this day's contest can certify, have gloriously done theirs, and great is their reward; for all that the country at large demands in its representatives-and therefore, like the Grecian painter who required perfection, have to seek in many, they have had the singular good fortune to find in one-is it the stern, the incorruptible, the self-sacrificing patriotism of Rome you require? you have it in him. Seek you the living model of that filial virtue which Seneca has so lauded to posterity in a Manlius and a Xenophon, in him you will find it excelled; in short, whether as husband, father, brother, statesman, or friend, virtue wants an all-compromising name, she has but to pronounce that of De Clifford!" (Hear! hear! hear! great table thumping, and several glasses broken.) "Truly may he say of his splendid achievements in the cause of reform,

"Exegi monumentum ære perennius.'

And now, gentlemen, knowing that it will find an echo in every heart here, I will propose the health of our enlightened and patriotic member, Viscount de Clifford !” "Viscount de Clifford !

"Hip! hip! hip! hurrah!" (nine times nine.)

When the plaudits had in some measure subsided, Lord de Clifford rose, with all that bashfulness peculiar to hackneyed speakers and girls of fifteen, and spoke as follows:

"Gentlemen,-In once more rising to address you, with Triverton and its inhabitants for my theme, I find I am, for the first time in my life, destitute of words; and yet this should not be, for you are one and all in my heart, and out of the fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh." (Hear! hear! hear!) "I will speak, then, but it shall be of that which is and ever shall be most dear to me--your interests; I should be unworthy of being their depository, were I undeserving of the eulogium my honourable friend the vice-president has this night pronounced upon me; no, it is the conviction that I am deserving of it, which makes me feel that I am worthy of you." (Tremendous applause from Fuzboz, followed in a few minutes by the rest of the guests.) "Need I remind you that I was among the first of your