"Well, you see," says Brown, "I have business of importance to transact—must be in town this evening. Give the party all they wish—put that in your fob—(handing the host an X)—post up your bill in the morning, and I'll be out bright and early to make all square. Do you hark?" says Brown.
"Oh, yes, sir—all right," responded the landlord.
Brown gave his confederate the cue, stepped out, promising to "be in in a minute," and then, getting into a carriage, he drove back to the city, almost tickled to death with the idea of how nicely the whigs would be "dished" when they all met at the City Hall, and came up minus two!
Smith, Brown's loco friend, did his best to keep the thing up, by calling in the New Jersey thunder and lightning—vulgarly known as Champagne—and even walked into the aforesaid t. and l. so deeply himself, that a man with half an eye might see Smith would be as blind as an owl in the course of the evening. But Smith was bound to do the thing up brown, and thought no sacrifice too great or too expensive to preserve the loaves and fishes of his party. All of a sudden, however, night was drawing on a pace, the whigs began to smell a mice. The absence of Brown, and the excessive politeness and liberality of Smith, in hurrying up the bottles, settled it in the minds of the whigs, that something was going on dangerous to the whig cause, and that they had better look out—and so they did.
"Jones," says one of the whigs, sotto voce, to the other, "Brown has cleared; it is evident he and Smith calculate to corner us here, prevent your presence in 'the Tea Room' to-night, and thus defeat your vote."
"The deuce! You don't think that, Hall, do you?"
"Faith, I do; but we won't be caught napping. Waiter, bring in a bottle of brandy."
"Brandy?" said Smith, in astonishment. "Why, you ain't going to dive right into it, in that way, are you?"
"Why not?" says Hall. "Brandy's the best thing in the world to settle your nerves after getting half fuddled on Champagne, my boy; just you try it—take a good stiff horn. Brown, you see, has cut, we must follow; so let's straighten up and get ready for a start. Here's to 'the loaves and fishes.'" Jones and Hall took their horns of Cogniac, which does really make some men sober as judges after they are very drunk on real or spurious Champagne.
"Well," says Smith, "it's my opinion we'll all be very tight going in this way, brandy on Champagne; but here goes to the fishes and loaves—the loaves and fishes, I mean."