thy
scientific instrument as this which I have called for. In its absence, I
am persuaded that the true natural oinometer is the hat. Were the hat
always worn during potation; were ladies when they retire to place it on
our heads, or, better still, chaplets of flowers; then, like the wise
ancients, we should be able to tell to a nicety how far we had advanced
in our dithyramb to the theme of fuddle and muddle. Unhappily the hat
does not forewarn: it is simply indicative. I believe, nevertheless, that
science might set to work upon it forthwith, and found a system. When you
mark men drinking who wear their hats, and those hats are seen gradually
beginning to hang on the backs of their heads, as from pegs, in the
fashion of a fez, the bald projection of forehead looks jolly and frank:
distrust that sign: the may-fly of the soul is then about to be gobbled
up by the chub of the passions. A hat worn fez-fashion is a dangerous
hat. A hat on the brows shows a man who can take more, but thinks he will
go home instead, and does so, peaceably. That is his determination. He
may look like Macduff, but he is a lamb. The vinous reverses the
non-vinous passionate expression of the hat. If I am discredited, I
appeal to history, which tells us that the hats of the Hillford
five-and-twenty were all exceedingly hind-ward-set when the march was
resumed. It followed that Peter Bartholomew, potboy, made irritable
objections to that old joke which finished his name as though it were a
cat calling, and the offence being repeated, he dealt an impartial swing
of his stick at divers heads, and told them to take that, which they
assured him they had done by sending him flying into a hedge. Peter,
being reprimanded by his commanding officer, acknowledged a hot desire to
try his mettle, and the latter responsible person had to be restrained
from granting the wish he cherished by John Girling, whom he threw for
his trouble and as Burdock was the soundest hitter, numbers cried out
against Girling, revolting him with a sense of overwhelming injustice
that could be appeased only by his prostrating two stout lads and
squaring against a third, who came up from a cross-road. This one knocked
him down with the gentleness of a fist that knows how Beer should be
treated, and then sang out, in the voice of Wilfrid Pole: "Which is the
nearest way to Ipley, you fellows?"

"Come along with us, sir, and we'll show you," said Burdock.

"Are you going there?"

"