. A blackguard who tries to make jokes out of the Scriptures
ought to be kicked!'

Harry rejoined, with wet lips: 'Wopping stuff, this ale! Who's that you
want to kick?'

'Somebody who objects to his bray, I suppose,' Mr. Raikes struck in,
across the table, negligently thrusting out his elbow to support his
head.

'Did you allude to me, sir?' Laxley inquired.

'I alluded to a donkey, sir.' Raikes lifted his eyelids to the same
level as Laxley's: 'a passing remark on that interesting animal.'

His friend Harry now came into the ring to try a fall.

'Are you an usher in a school?' he asked, meaning by his looks what men
of science in fisticuffs call business.

Mr. Raikes started in amazement. He recovered as quickly.

'No, sir, not quite; but I have no doubt I should be able to instruct
you upon a point or two.'

'Good manners, for instance?' remarked the third young cricketer,
without disturbing his habitual smile.

'Or what comes from not observing them,' said Evan, unwilling to have
Jack over-matched.

'Perhaps you'll give me a lesson now?' Harry indicated a readiness to
rise for either of them.

At this juncture the chairman interposed.

'Harmony, my lads!--harmony to-night.'

Farmer Broadmead, imagining it to be the signal for a song, returned:

'All right, Mr.--- Mr. Chair! but we an't got pipes in yet. Pipes before
harmony, you know, to-night.'

The pipes were summoned forthwith. System appeared to regulate the
proceedings of this particular night at the Green Dragon. The pipes
charged, and those of the guests who smoked, well fixed behind them,
celestial Harmony was invoked through the slowly curling clouds. In
Britain the Goddess is coy. She demands pressure to appear, and great
gulps of ale. Vastly does she swell the chests of her island children,
but with the modesty of a maid at the commencement. Precedence again
disturbed the minds of the company. At last the red-faced young farmer
led off with 'The Rose and the Thorn.' In that day Chloe still lived;
nor were the amorous transports of Strephon quenched. Mountainous
inflation--mouse-like issue characterized the young farmer's first
verse. Encouraged by manifest approbation he now told Chloe that he 'by
Heaven! never would plant in that bosom a thorn,' with such a volume of
sound as did indeed show how a lover's oath should be uttered in the ear
of a British damsel to subdue her.

'Good!' cried Mr. Raikes, anxious to be convivial.

Subsi