beer-jugs in an hour, and multiplied again by fifteen (the number
of hours during which the house was open daily) yielded three
thousand seven hundred and eighty people with beer-jugs per day, or
twenty-six thousand four hundred and sixty people with beer-jugs,
per week. Then he proceeded to show that a tambourine and moral
degradation were synonymous terms, and a fiddle and vicious
propensities wholly inseparable. All these arguments he
strengthened and demonstrated by frequent references to a large
book with a blue cover, and sundry quotations from the Middlesex
magistrates; and in the end, the corporation, who were posed with
the figures, and sleepy with the speech, and sadly in want of
dinner into the bargain, yielded the palm to Nicholas Tulrumble,
and refused the music licence to the Jolly Boatmen.

But although Nicholas triumphed, his triumph was short. He carried
on the war against beer-jugs and fiddles, forgetting the time when
he was glad to drink out of the one, and to dance to the other,
till the people hated, and his old friends shunned him. He grew
tired of the lonely magnificence of Mudfog Hall, and his heart
yearned towards the Lighterman's Arms. He wished he had never set
up as a public man, and sighed for the good old times of the coal-
shop, and the chimney corner.

At length old Nicholas, being thoroughly miserable, took heart of
grace, paid the secretary a quarter's wages in advance, and packed
him off to London by the next coach. Having taken this step, he
put his hat on his head, and his pride in his pocket, and walked
down to the old room at the Lighterman's Arms. There were only two
of the old fellows there, and they looked coldly on Nicholas as he
proffered his hand.