"A sentence!—a sentence!—a righteous and just sentence!—a glorious decree!—a most worthy and upright, and holy condemnation!"—shouted the Pest Family altogether. The king elevated his forehead into innumerable wrinkles—the gouty little old man puffed like a pair of bellows—the lady of the winding sheet waved her nose to and fro—the gentleman in the cotton drawers pricked up his ears—she of the shroud gasped like a dying fish—and he of the coffin looked stiff and rolled up his eyes.
"Ugh!—ugh!—ugh!"—chuckled Tarpaulin without heeding the general excitation—"ugh!—ugh!—ugh!—ugh!—ugh!—ugh!—ugh!—ugh!—ugh!" "I was saying," said he,—"I was saying when Mr. King Pest poked in his marling-spike, that as for the matter of two or three gallons more or less Black Strap, it was a trifle to a tight sea-boat like myself not overstowed—but when it comes to drinking the health of the Devil—whom God assoilzie—and going down upon my marrow bones to his ill-favored majesty there, whom I know, as well as I know myself to be a sinner, to be nobody in the whole world but Tim Hurlygurly, the organ-grinder—why! its quite another guess sort of a thing, and utterly and altogether past my comprehension."
He was not allowed to finish this speech in tranquillity. At the name of Tim Hurlygurly the whole Junto leaped from their seats.
"Treason!"—shouted his Serenity King Pest the First.
"Treason!"—said the little man with the gout.
"Treason!"—screamed the Arch Duchess Ana-Pest.
"Treason!"—muttered the gentleman with his jaws tied up.
"Treason!"—growled he of the coffin.
"Treason! treason!"—shrieked her majesty of the mouth; and, seizing by the hinder part of his breeches the unfortunate Tarpaulin, who had just commenced pouring out for himself a scull of liqueur, she lifted him high up into the air, and dropped him without ceremony into the huge open puncheon of his beloved ale. Bobbing up and down, for a few seconds, like an apple in a bowl of toddy, he, at length, finally disappeared amid the whirlpool of foam which, in the already effervescent liquor, his struggles easily succeeded in creating.
Not tamely however did the tall seaman behold the discomfiture of his companion. Jostling King Pest through the open trap, the valiant Legs slammed the door down upon him with an oath, and strode towards the centre of the room. Here tearing down the huge skeleton which swung over the table, he laid it about him with so much energy and good will, that, as the last glimpses of light died away within the apartment, he succeeded in knocking out the brains of the little gentleman with the gout. Rushing then with all his force against the fatal hogshead full of October ale and Hugh Tarpaulin, he rolled it over and over in an instant. Out burst a deluge of liquor so fierce—so impetuous—so overwhelming—that the room was flooded from wall to wall—the loaded table was overturned—the tressels were thrown upon their backs—the tub of punch into the fire place—and the ladies into hysterics. Jugs, pitchers, and carboys mingled promiscuously in the melée, and wicker flagons encountered desperately with bottles of junk. Piles of death-furniture floundered about. Sculls floated en masse—hearse-plumes nodded to escutcheons—the man with the horrors was drowned upon the spot—the little stiff gentleman sailed off in his coffin—and the victorious Legs, seizing by the waist the fat lady in the shroud, scudded out into the street followed under easy sail, by the redoubted Hugh Tarpaulin, who, having sneezed three or four times, panted and puffed after him with the Arch Duchess Ana-Pest.