And there he stopped as if that were all he had to say; whereupon
there arose a murmur among the company, which at length resolved
itself into a request, conveyed through the vice, that he would go
on. This being exactly what the chairman wanted, he mused for a
little time, performed that agreeable ceremony which is popularly
termed wetting one's whistle, and went on thus:

'Tom Grig, gentlemen, was, as I have said, one of us; and I may go
further, and say he was an ornament to us, and such a one as only
the good old times of oil and cotton could have produced. Tom's
family, gentlemen, were all lamplighters.'

'Not the ladies, I hope?' asked the vice.

'They had talent enough for it, Sir,' rejoined the chairman, 'and
would have been, but for the prejudices of society. Let women have
their rights, Sir, and the females of Tom's family would have been
every one of 'em in office. But that emancipation hasn't come yet,
and hadn't then, and consequently they confined themselves to the
bosoms of their families, cooked the dinners, mended the clothes,
minded the children, comforted their husbands, and attended to the
house-keeping generally. It's a hard thing upon the women,
gentlemen, that they are limited to such a sphere of action as
this; very hard.

'I happen to know all about Tom, gentlemen, from the circumstance
of his uncle by his mother's side, having been my particular
friend. His (that's Tom's uncle's) fate was a melancholy one. Gas
was the death of him. When it was first talked of, he laughed. He
wasn't angry; he laughed at the credulity of human nature. "They