minutes.

On his return, he said, with a cheerful countenance, that we were free of
the house, but that we must pay a shilling each as the customary fee.
This sum was soon collected, and quietly inserted in the waistcoat pocket
of our chaperon, who then conducted us up the passage into a small back
room, where were sitting about seven or eight men, enveloped in smoke,
and moistening the fever of the Virginian plant with various preparations
of malt. On entering, I observed Mr. Gordon deposit, at a sort of bar,
the sum of three-pence, by which I shrewdly surmised he had gained the
sum of two and nine-pence by our admission. With a very arrogant air, he
proceeded to the head of the table, sat himself down with a swagger, and
called out, like a lusty royster of the true kidney, for a pint of purl
and a pipe. Not to be out of fashion, we ordered the same articles of
luxury.

After we had all commenced a couple of puffs at our pipes, I looked round
at our fellow guests; they seemed in a very poor state of body, as might
naturally be supposed; and, in order to ascertain how far the condition
of the mind was suited to that of the frame, I turned round to Mr.
Gordon, and asked him in a whisper to give us a few hints as to the genus
and characteristics of the individual components of his club. Mr. Gordon
declared himself delighted with the proposal, and we all adjourned to a
separate table at the corner of the room, where Mr. Gordon, after a deep
draught at the purl, thus began:--"You observe yon thin, meagre,
cadaverous animal, with rather an intelligent and melancholy expression
of countenance--his name is Chitterling Crabtree: his father was an
eminent coal-merchant, and left him L10,000. Crabtree turned politician.
When fate wishes to ruin a man of moderate abilities and moderate
fortune, she makes him an orator. Mr. Chitterling Crabtree attended all