real thing--this is genuine--this is what you can approve, can recommend to
a friend: this--says every man, on reflection--this is the thing that ought
to be!" Then, looking at particular friends, he said--"Why, Jack, how are
you? Why, Tom, how are you? Bless me, you look ten years younger than
when I last saw you." "No, sir," I replied, "It is you who look ten years
younger." "Do I? well, I should'nt wonder if I did; such works are
enough to make us all young." And in fact the general opinion is, that
Toad-in-the-hole would have died but for this regeneration of art, which
he called a second age of Leo the Tenth; and it was our duty, he said
solemnly, to commemorate it. At present, and _en attendant_--rather as an
occasion for a public participation in public sympathy, than as in itself
any commensurate testimony of our interest--he proposed that the club
should meet and dine together. A splendid public dinner, therefore, was
given by the club; to which all amateurs were invited from a distance of
one hundred miles.

Of this dinner there are ample short-hand notes amongst the archives of
the club. But they are not "extended," to speak diplomatically; and the
reporter is missing--I believe, murdered. Meantime, in years long after
that day, and on an occasion perhaps equally interesting, viz., the turning
up of Thugs and Thuggism, another dinner was given. Of this I myself kept
notes, for fear of another accident to the short-hand reporter. And I here
subjoin them. Toad-in-the-hole, I must mention, was present at this dinner.
In fact, it was one of its sentimental incidents. Being as old as the
valleys at the dinner of 1812, naturally he was as old as the hills at the
Thug dinner of 1838. He had taken to wearing his beard again; why, or with
what view, it passes my persimmon to tell you. But so it was. And his
appearance was most benign and venerable. Nothing could equal the angelic
radiance of his smile as he inquired after the unfortunate reporter, (whom,
as a piece of private scandal, I should tell you that he was himself