As the night came on apace, the smoky, old-fashioned, paneled room began to fill up, and before long nothing could be seen but rows of men lining the small tables, puffing vigorously from the long clay pipes, and at intervals taking deep draughts from the large, brightly burnished metal pots, holding a pint each, or perhaps sipping fourpenny glasses of hot gin and water. Along with the little jar of hot water which the waiter brought on demand, were little saucers of sugar—these little saucers never containing, by any chance, more than three lumps of sugar, and each of these lumps being equalized in size with a mathematical nicety. Some of the visitors, more hungry than others, satisfied their longings with "Welsh Rabbits," at sixpence apiece; or, when the rabbits had, in addition, two eggs cooked with them, the Welsh rabbit was called a "Golden Buck," and the waiter, in his greasy tail coat, raised his demand to eightpence.
In a few minutes the Worthy Vice, a gray-bearded man with a meek face and in shabby-genteel clothes, took his seat, and all the chairs in the apartment were turned around by those who occupied them in order that they might hear and see better. The Worthy Vice, who is sometimes entered on the bills of the performance as a "Patriot" when he has to take part in a discussion, read the minutes of the last meeting of the Ancient and Honorable Society of Cogers, which were listened to quietly, and then the attention of the audience was turned to the Most Worthy Grand, who occupied the chair at the other end of the apartment. This most noble Briton, in a quavering voice, having adjusted his vest—which had a tendency to leave exposed the lower part of the shirt-bosom at his stomach where his trousers bisected—opened the proceedings with much solemnity, imitating by hems and haws, as well as he could, the manners of the dullest and most common-place orators of the House of Commons. His business as a specialty was to review the events of the week.
NEWS OF THE WEEK.
"I don't think, gentlemen," said he, "that my task will be a very long one this hevening in reviewing the hevents of the week. There, aw, 'asn't been much a-doing in furrin parts, ah, this week. There 'as been 'a row in Turkee again, and in, ah, fact we might say there is halways a row in Turkee, more or less. There's a man in Hegipt whom we call the Viceroy of that, ah, country, and when he, ah, wos here we gave 'im fireworks and sich, and made a blessed time about him, as we might say vulgarly, so to speak. Now, he has been a invitin' of all the sovrins of Europe on his own hook to see him and his ryal family open the Sooz Canal. Well, he has been, ah, spendin' sich a lot of money that the Sultan comes out in a long letter and calls him a Cadivar, which is a word that I can't understand, being neither Latin nor yet Greek.
"Blessed hif I knowed that ye iver understood Greek or Lating, ither, Jimmy," said an old man who sat observant of the reviewer in a corner, drinking beer from a pewter pot.
"I thank ye all the same, Mr. Wilkins, but I don't like to be interrupted when I'm speaking," answered the Most Worthy Grand.
"You're right, Me Grand. Horder! horder!" shouted several indignant voices.
"I wos goin' to say," continued the Grand, after taking a deep draught of the porter which foamed in the pewter pot on the table before him—"I wos goin' to say that the state of our neighbor, Fronse, just hover the water, is now a spektikle for mankind. There's a great hadoo about the Hemperor's 'elth; and I must say as how he is in a bad way by all accounts. Nobody knows wot his disease is. It may be liver; it may be kidneys. I might take the liberty of sayin', as a rule, kidneys is bad. No one knows wot would be the consequences if the Hemperor was to step out, wulgularly speakin'. It would p'r'aps be the cause of a general war in Europe. Hengland doesn't want any more wars. We 'ave 'ad enough of them. They does no good for the workin' man. ('Hear! hear!') We pays the piper when the dancin' is done; but we never dances ourselves."