hat they would instantaneously
'form a union,' both which requisitions were responded to, in the manner
most in vogue on such occasions.

'Give that dog a bone!' cried one gentleman in his shirt-sleeves.

'Where have you been a having half a pint of intermediate beer?' cried a
second. 'Tailor!' screamed a third. 'Barber's clerk!' shouted a fourth.
'Throw him O--VER!' roared a fifth; while numerous voices concurred in
desiring Mr. Thomas Potter to 'go home to his mother!' All these taunts
Mr. Thomas Potter received with supreme contempt, cocking the low-crowned
hat a little more on one side, whenever any reference was made to his
personal appearance, and, standing up with his arms a-kimbo, expressing
defiance melodramatically.

The overture--to which these various sounds had been an _ad libitum_
accompaniment--concluded, the second piece began, and Mr. Thomas Potter,
emboldened by impunity, proceeded to behave in a most unprecedented and
outrageous manner. First of all, he imitated the shake of the principal
female singer; then, groaned at the blue fire; then, affected to be
frightened into convulsions of terror at the appearance of the ghost;
and, lastly, not only made a running commentary, in an audible voice,
upon the dialogue on the stage, but actually awoke Mr. Robert Smithers,
who, hearing his companion making a noise, and having a very indistinct
notion where he was, or what was required of him, immediately, by way of
imitating a good example, set up the most unearthly, unremitting, and
appalling howling that ever audience heard. It was too much. 'Turn them
out!' was the general cry. A noise, as of shuffling of feet, and men
being knocked up with violence against wainscoting, was heard: a hurried
dialogue of 'Come out?'--'I won't!'--'You shall!'--'I shan't!'--'Give me
your card, Sir?'--'You're a scoundrel, Sir!' and so forth, succeeded. A
round of applause betokened the approbation of the audience, and Mr.
Robert Smithers and Mr. Thomas Potter found themselves shot with
astonishing swiftness into the road, without having had the trouble of
once putting foot to ground during the whole progress of their rapid
descent.

Mr. Robert Smithers, being constitutionally one of the slow-goers, and
having had quite enough of fast-going, in the course of his recent
expulsion, to last until the quarter-day then next ensuing at the very
least, had no sooner emerged with his companion from the precincts of
Milton-stre