the hands of the Philistines?"

"By no means," answered Dartmore. "In a party, whose members make no
pretensions to sobriety, it would be too hard to expect that persons who
are scarcely capable of taking care of themselves, should take care of
other people. No; we have, in all these exploits, only the one maxim of
self-preservation."

"Allow me," said Tringle, seizing me by the coat, "to explain it to you
on scientific principles. You will find, in hydrostatics, that the
attraction of cohesion is far less powerful in fluids than in solids;
viz. that persons who have been converting their 'solid flesh' into wine
skins, cannot stick so close to one another as when they are sober."

"Bravo, Tringle!" cried Dartmore; "and now, Pelham, I hope your delicate
scruples are, after so luminous an eclaircissement, set at rest for
ever."

"You have convinced me," said I; "let us leave the unfortunates to their
fate, and Sir Richard. What is now to be done?"

"Why, in the first place," answered Dartmore, "let us reconnoitre. Does
any one know this spot?"

"Not I," said both of us. We inquired of an old fellow, who was tottering
home under the same Bacchanalian auspices as ourselves, and found we were
in Lincoln's Inn Fields.

"Which shall we do?" asked I, "stroll home; or parade the streets, visit
the Cider-Cellar, and the Finish, and kiss the first lass we meet in the