a raging thirst (produced, I suppose, by the flurry of spirits I had
undergone), I seemed to hear screams, groans, and hisses, above all which
predominated loud and clear the malignant denunciation--"Turn him
out--he's drunk!"

Upon my subsequently mentioning the above adventure to Jack Withers, it
will hardly be credited that this villain without shame at once roundly
asserted that, when I left him on the afore-mentioned night, I was at
least three sheets and three quarters in the wind; adding with
praiseworthy candour, that he himself was so far gone as to be obliged, to
the infinite scandal of his staid old housekeeper, to creep up stairs _à
quatre pieds_, in order to gain his bedroom.

Now this latter may be true enough, for it is probable that friend Jack
freshened his nip a trifle after my departure, seeing that he was always
something of a drunken knave. As for his calumnious and scandalous
declaration, that _I_ was in the least degree tipsy, it is too ridiculous
to be noticed. I scorn it with my heels--I was sober--sober, cool, and
steady as the north star; and he that is inclined to question this solemn
asseveration, let him send me his card; and if I don't drill a hole in his
doublet before he's forty-eight hours older, then, as honest Slender has
it, "I would I might never come in mine own great chamber again else."

* * * * *


"ARE YE SURE THE NEWS IS TRUE?"

We learn from good authority that Lord TAMBOFF STANLEY, in answer to a
deputation from Scotland, assured the gentlemen who waited upon him that