et, than he proceeded to indulge in circuitous references to
the beauties of sleep, mingled with distant allusions to the propriety of
returning to Islington, and testing the influence of their patent Bramahs
over the street-door locks to which they respectively belonged. Mr.
Thomas Potter, however, was valorous and peremptory. They had come out
to make a night of it: and a night must be made. So Mr. Robert Smithers,
who was three parts dull, and the other dismal, despairingly assented;
and they went into a wine-vaults, to get materials for assisting them in
making a night; where they found a good many young ladies, and various
old gentlemen, and a plentiful sprinkling of hackney-coachmen and
cab-drivers, all drinking and talking together; and Mr. Thomas Potter and
Mr. Robert Smithers drank small glasses of brandy, and large glasses of
soda, until they began to have a very confused idea, either of things in
general, or of anything in particular; and, when they had done treating
themselves they began to treat everybody else; and the rest of the
entertainment was a confused mixture of heads and heels, black eyes and
blue uniforms, mud and gas-lights, thick doors, and stone paving.

Then, as standard novelists expressively inform us--'all was a blank!'
and in the morning the blank was filled up with the words
'STATION-HOUSE,' and the station-house was filled up with Mr. Thomas
Potter, Mr. Robert Smithers, and the major part of their wine-vault
companions of the preceding night, with a comparatively small portion of
clothing of any kind. And it was disclosed at the Police-office, to the
indignation of the Bench, and the astonishment of the spectators, how one
Robert Smithers, aided and abetted by one Thomas Potter, had knocked down
and beaten, in divers streets, at different times, five men, four boys,
and three women; how the said Thomas Potter had feloniously obtained
possession of five door-knockers, two bell-handles, and a bonnet; how
Robert Smithers, his friend, had sworn, at least forty pounds' worth of
oaths, at the rate of five shillings apiece; terrified whole streets full
of Her Majesty's subjects with awful shrieks and alarms of fire;
destroyed the uniforms of five policemen; and committed various other
atrocities, too numerous to recapitulate. And the magistrate, after an
appropriate reprimand, fined Mr. Thomas Potter and Mr. Thomas Smithers
five shillings each, for being, what the law vulgarly terms, drunk;