suffering severely from thirsty head-aches, produced, I am convinced,
by the rapid consumption of thirteen bowls of whiskey-punch on the
preceding night. The rain was falling in perpendicular torrents, and
the whole aspect of out-of-door nature was gloomy and sloppy, when we
were alarmed by the exclamation of Joseph Jones (a relation of the
Welsh Joneses), who officiated as our treasurer, and upon inquiring the
cause, were horror-stricken to find that we had arrived at our last
ten-pound note, and that the landlord had sent an imperative message,
requiring the immediate settlement of our back-rent. It is impossible
to paint the consternation depicted on every countenance, already
sufficiently disordered by previous suffering and biliary
disarrangement.

I was the first to speak; for being the son of a shabby-genteel father,
I had witnessed in my infancy many of those schemes to raise the
needful, to which ambitious men with limited incomes are so frequently
driven. I therefore bid them be of good heart, for that any pawnbroker
in the neighbourhood would readily advance money upon the superfluous
wardrobe which we possessed. This remark was received with loud cheers,
which, I have no doubt, would have been much more vehement but from the
fatal effects of the whiskey-punch.

The landlord's claim was instantly discharged, and after several pots
of strong green tea, rendered innocuous by brandy, we sallied forth in
pursuit of what we then ignorantly conceived to be pleasure.

I will not pause to particularise the gradual diminution of our
property, but come at once to that period when, having consumed all our
superfluities, it become a serious subject of consideration, what
should next be sacrificed.