"And now, gentlemen," said Clifford, as soon as the revellers had
provided themselves with their wonted luxuries, potatory and fumous, "let
us hear your adventures, and rejoice our eyes with their produce. The
gallant Attie shall begin; but first, a toast,--'May those who leap from
a hedge never leap from a tree!'"

This toast being drunk with enthusiastic applause, Fighting Attie began
the recital of his little history.

"You sees, Captain," said he, putting himself in a martial position, and
looking Clifford full in the face, "that I'm not addicted to much
blarney. Little cry and much wool is my motto. At ten o'clock A.M. saw
the enemy--in the shape of a Doctor of Divinity. 'Blow me,' says I to
Old Bags, 'but I 'll do his reverence!' 'Blow me,' says Old Bags, 'but
you sha' n't,--you'll have us scragged if you touches the Church.' 'My
grandmother!' says I. Bags tells the pals,--all in a fuss about it,--
what care I? I puts on a decent dress, and goes to the doctor as a
decayed soldier wot supplies the shops in the turning line. His
reverence--a fat jolly dog as ever you see--was at dinner over a fine
roast pig; so I tells him I have some bargains at home for him. Splice
me, if the doctor did not think he had got a prize; so he puts on his
boots, and he comes with me to my house. But when I gets him into a
lane, out come my pops. 'Give up, Doctor,' says I; 'others must share
the goods of the Church now.' You has no idea what a row he made; but I
did the thing, and there's an end on't."

"Bravo, Attie!" cried Clifford; and the word echoed round the board.
Attie put a purse on the table, and the next gentleman was called to
confession.