When this interesting episode in the day's performance was concluded, the participants picked themselves up, and prepared to again besiege Satan in his stronghold, the north side of Sebastopol of the hearts of sinful niggers. Singing was the first feature, and the hymn was of a style unique, and, to the Elephants, highly refreshing. In point of comparison they had never known anything like it, and the execution was incomparable to anything known to exist by them. An athletic colored individual sang the words of the hymn, and, after each verse, the whole congregation would join in the swelling chorus.
The effect of the hymn was electric. No less than twenty-seven colored females were seized with spasmodic religion, whilst over a dozen of the sterner sex found themselves unable to longer resist the thirsting of the spirit for religious nourishment, and they, too, fell over, and, amid the howling, kicking, singing, shouting and indescribable confusion that followed, Mr. Quackenbush expressed it as his opinion that chaos had come.
But Mr. Boggs was seriously affected by the performance. He fell down in the grass, and laughed, and rolled, and positively refused to be comforted or get up, until the rest of the company ran sticks in his ears, and put last year's chestnut-burs down his back. When he had sufficiently recovered, the members of the club renewed their investigations. They listened to several exhortations and hymns, and then peeped under the horse-blanket tents. In one they saw a youthful wench, trying to pray with her mouth full of cold sausage. Her efforts were useless, and becoming satisfied of this fact herself, she concluded, very sensibly, to no longer try to save her soul on an empty stomach, but see to her bodily wants first. Before she had got ready to pray again she had drank a pint of gin, which so heightened her religious enthusiasm that she made a dive among the pious elders, gave four shouts of glory, and fell into the arms of a venerable gentleman, who divided his time for the next hour in kissing the young sister, and crying amen and glory in alternation.
At last, the Elephants concluded to return to the city. They piled themselves into the vehicles, and by means of sundry persuasive arguments, the horses were induced to reach the livery-stable, rather warm, inside of two hours.
After the party had stowed away divers beefsteaks and onions, and other articles of food, they ascended into the club-room. Here they found Overdale and Wagstaff, both asleep. They were awakened, and, in a peremptory manner, the Higholdboy demanded to know why they had not been on hand in the morning at the place of rendezvous, to witness the sable performance in the rural districts. The answers of the two offending individuals differed. Wagstaff assigned as a reason that he was asleep, whereas Overdale stated that he wasn't awake. The Higholdboy announced himself satisfied with the answers.
"There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which taken at the flood leads on——"
WITH the facts contained in our last chapter, the members of the