Mr. Witler's "wocal wagaries" (as his son called them) when he was roused, were something tremendous, earthquaky, appalling!
Mr. Swigslop Stiggins, a leading Shepherd of the Nonconformist Rechabite Flock, unwarned by this nondescript sound, which he understood to betoken remorse or repentance, in fact, an awakening of the "Nonconformist Conscience," in a somewhat unlikely quarter, looked about him, rubbed his hands, wept, smiled, wept again, and then mechanically uttering a guttural "Hear! Hear!" (as though he were listening, in the House of Commons, to the jocund Harcourt, or the jocular Lawson, or the robustious T. W. Russell, or the astute Caine) and then, walking across the room to a well-remembered pigeon-hole, took thence an official-looking scroll, sat down, formally unfolded it, cleared his throat, and began with pompous complacency to read aloud its title, preamble, clauses, and provisions, compulsory regulations, and peremptory prohibitions to the apparently semi-asphyxiated Mr. Witler.
The elder Mr. Witler, who still continued to make various strange and uncouth attempts to appear indifferent, offered not a single word during these proceedings; but when Stiggins stopped for breath, previous to a second reading, he darted upon him, and, snatching the scroll from his hand, first buffeted him briskly about the head therewith, and then threw it into the fire. Then, seizing the astonished gentleman firmly by the collar, he suddenly fell to kicking him most furiously, accompanying every application of his boots to Mr. Stiggins's person with sundry violent and incoherent anathemas, such as—"Blatant Barabbas!"—"Bumptious busybody!"—"Unblushing bandit!"—"Barefaced spoliator!"—"Hypocritical humbug!"—"Iniquitous inquisitor!"—"Fanatical faddist!"—"Self-righteous sneak!"—"Sham saint!"—"Jerrymandering Jeremy Diddler!"—"Pragmatical pump!"—"Little Bethelite Boanerges!" and "Nonconformist Tartuffe!!!"
"Sammy," said Mr. Witler, "put my cap on tight for me!" Sam dutifully adjusted the cap more firmly on his father's head, and the old gentleman, resuming his kicking with greater agility than before, tumbled Mr. Stiggins through the bar, and through the passage, out at the front door, and so into the street, the kicking continuing the whole way, and increasing in vehemence rather than diminishing every time the boot was lifted.
It was a beautiful and exhilarating sight (to "the Trade") to see the water-drinker writhing in Mr. Witler's grasp, and his whole frame quivering with anguish as kick followed kick in rapid succession; it was a still more exciting spectacle (to Bungdom all round, from boisterous Lord Burton to the humblest rural Boniface) to behold Mr. Witler, after a powerful struggle, immersing Mr. Stiggins's head in a horse-trough full of water, and holding it there until he was half suffocated.
"There!" said Mr. Witler, throwing all his energy into one most complicated kick, as he at length permitted Mr. Stiggins to withdraw his head from the trough, "send any vun o' them villainous Vetoists, from burly Sir Villiam Barabbas hisself down to the pettifoggingest Local Hoptioniser in Little Peddlington, here, or to St. James's 'All, or the Alhambra, or elseveres in public meeting or privit pub, and I'll pound him to a argymentative jelly fust, and drownd him in public-speritted opinion arterwards!"
"Sammy" (added Mr. Witler, puffing and perspiring freely), "help me in, and fill me a stiff glass o' Speshal Scotch; for I'm out of breath, my boy!"
