authority; and the thank I got for my pains was the mortification to
see the worthless body restored to full power and dignity, with no
other reward than an admonition to behave better for the future.
Now, I leave it to the unbiassed judgment of posterity to determine
if any public man could be more ungraciously treated by his
colleagues than I was on this occasion. But, verily, the council
had their reward.



CHAPTER XXXIII--AN ALARM



The divor, Robin Boss, being, as I have recorded, reinstated in
office, soon began to play his old tricks. In the course of the
week after the Michaelmas term at which my second provostry ended,
he was so insupportably drunk that he fell head foremost into his
drum, which cost the town five-and-twenty shillings for a new one--
an accident that was not without some satisfaction to me; and I trow
I was not sparing in my derisive commendations on the worth of such
a public officer. Nevertheless, he was still kept on, some
befriending him for compassion, and others as it were to spite me.

But Robin's good behaviour did not end with breaking the drum, and
costing a new one.--In the course of the winter it was his custom to
beat, "Go to bed, Tom," about ten o'clock at night, and the reveille
at five in the morning.--In one of his drunken fits he made a
mistake, and instead of going his rounds as usual at ten o'clock, he
had fallen asleep in a change house, and waking about the midnight