brother M'Slime, I follow your admirable advice; you see I
do--I shall'

"'Mr. Chairman,' said he, 'gentlemen and dear brothers'--here he paused
a moment, whilst calmly removing the tumbler out of his way that he
might have room to place his hand upon the table and gently lean towards
the chairman. He then serenely smoothed down the frill of his shirt,
during which his friends cheered--and ere commencing he gave them
another short, and, as it were, parenthetical bow. 'Mr. Chairman,
gentlemen, and dear brothers, I do not rise upon this very unpleasant
occasion--unpleasant to me it is, but not on my account--for the purpose
of giving vent to the coarse effusions of an unlettered mind, that
shapes its vulgar outpourings in bad language and worse feeling. No, I
am incapable of the bad feeling, in the first place, and, thanks to
my education, of illiterate language, in the second. It has pleased my
friend Mr. Yellowboy--if he will still allow me to call him so--for I
appeal to you all whether it becomes those who sit under this hallowed
roof to disagree--it has pleased him, I say, to bring charges against
me, to some of which I certainly must plead guilty--if guilt there be
in it. It has pleased him to charge me with the unbrotherly crime, the
unchristian crime, the un-orange crime'--here he smiled more blandly
at every term, and then brought his smiling eye to bear on his
antagonist--'of lifting him out of the channel about twelve o'clock
at night, where he lay--I may say so among ourselves--in state of most
comfortable, but un-orange-like intoxication.'

"The audience now being mostly drunk, were tickled with this compliment
to their sobriety, and cheered and shouted for more than a minute. 'Go
on Cantwell! By Japers, you're no blockhead!'

"'Under Providence, and with all piety I say it, he will vanquish the
yallow sinner over there.'

"'Brother Cantwell,' observed Mr. M'Slime, 'go on--the gift is not
withheld.'

"Another smiling bow to M'Slime, as much as to say, 'I know it's not--I
feel it's not.'

"'This, gentlemen, and dear brothers, was my crime--I acted the good
Samaritan towards him--that was my crime. May I often commit it!'

"'Is that your pretended charity, sir?' said Yellowboy, whose temper
was sorely tried by the other's calmness; 'don't you know, sir, that you
cannot become the Samaritan unless I become the drunkard? and yet you
hope often to commit it!'

"No notice whatsoever taken of this.

"'-