Buzz led the way through a long entry to a door, which he pointed out to the squire as communicating with the apartment where the “young gentlemen” were assembled. It needed not his words to convince Fuzz and his two remaining companions of this fact. A noise of uproarious mirth, mingled with the jingling of glasses, the clash of plates and the stamping of feet, plainly foretold the state of things within. Fuzz buttoned his coat, and tried to look undismayed.
“Now, gentlemen,” said he, “stand by me. Don’t flinch.”
He made a bold step forward, but as his palm approached the door-handle, an explosion of laughter, loud and long, made him recoil like a man who has barely saved himself from falling over a precipice. He looked at his associates, puffed out his cheeks, and seemed to be gathering energy for a renewed essay. Again he stopped suddenly, and assuming a look of unwonted sagacity, remarked that it was best to proceed gently and craftily about the business. Then motioning the bystanders to keep silence, he cautiously turned the handle of the door, and, opening it an inch or two, stealthily looked in upon the convivial party. It consisted of four nice young men. They were seated at a round table, which was plentifully covered with bottles, decanters, glasses, and the remains of a dessert. Two of the party were strangers to Fuzz, but the other two were, marvellous to behold, no other than Fobb and Snobb, not seamed with ghastly wounds, but quaffing champagne and clapping each other on the back with the affectionate familiarity of old friends.
At this spectacle, Fuzz was no less amazed than he would have been, had he seen one of the editors trussed, spitted and “done to a turn,” served up in a big dish on the table, while the other was flourishing his knife with the savory anticipation of making a meal of him. Cautiously shutting the door, Fuzz communicated the astounding fact to his brethren of the committee, and then reopening the door so that they might hear without seeing or being seen, they listened “with all their ears.”
“Yes, gentlemen,” said the voice of Fobb in tones of mock solemnity, “you behold in that abandoned individual, my unworthy brother Zeke Peabody, otherwise known as Simon Snobb—you behold in him, I repeat, the ruthless, unhung murderer of the unfortunate Amanda W——.”
Here a roar of obstreperous laughter, in which Snobb’s lungs seemed to crow like chanticleer, interrupted the speaker for a moment. He continued:
“If you ask me for proofs, consider for a moment the fact of the red silk handkerchief—the white crape scarf—the old pruning-knife that was found under the cherry-tree. If these circumstances be not enough to convict that cowering culprit—then pass along the champagne, and fill to my toast.”
“Fill to Fobb’s toast!” exclaimed three voices amid shouts of laughter.
“My toast,” said Fobb, “is one that cannot fail to be appreciated by this intelligent company. You, my dear Timms, will drink to it with a tear in your eye, for are you not the immortal inventor of the world-renowned Tricogrophpophphlogidion, that invaluable and never-to-be-sufficiently-commended preparation for the hair, by merely spreading which over a wig-block, you find there the next morning, a beautiful, curly wig, redundant and glossy? And you, O modest and retiring Jones, are not you the man that, by your grandfather’s celebrated pills, have rejuvenated suffering humanity? Have you not ‘floored consumption,’ and broken the back of dispepsia? Isn’t it a man’s own fault now if he is sick? Do not children cry for your incomparable lozenges? Are they not a blessing to mothers, and a curse to the doctors? Cannot a hand-cart-man, with your powerful ‘poor man’s plaster’ on his back, draw fifty times the weight that he could without it? Estimable, philanthropic Jones! Posterity will do you justice. And you, brother Zeke, in Tattletown known as Snobb, where shall we find an editor in the country who can fight windmills and make people think they are devouring despots with a better grace than yourself? My own accomplishments modesty forbids me to speak at length; but I flatter myself, that the story of Amanda W—— and the pruning-knife—and my eloquent denunciations of the monster, Snobb—are not unworthy specimens of those talents which entitle me to rank myself in your fraternity, and to participate in the emotions, which the sentiment I am now about to offer is calculated to excite. I will give you, gentlemen: Vive la humbug!”
Hardly had the peals of laughter consequent upon this prolonged sally subsided, when Fuzz, who was holding on to the door by the handle, being pressed upon from behind by his own companions, and two or three bar-room loungers, whom the sound of speech-making had attracted to the spot, suddenly let the handle slip from his grasp, whereupon the whole body of eaves-droppers, preceded by the squire, were precipitated into the room, where the two editors and their friends were at their revels. Imagining it to be a hostile invasion, the four friends, whose tempers had been pretty well primed with champagne, immediately “squared off,” and showed their “science.”