It was in this place, the reader will remember, that the hapless Dame du Château was at that very instant in "durance vile." Bedos, who took the condemned monkey, opened the door, thrust Jocko in, and closed it again. Meanwhile we resumed our merriment. "Nunc est bibendum," said Vincent, as Bedos placed the punch on the table. "Give us a toast, Dartmore." Lord Dartmore was a young man, with tremendous spirits, which made up for wit. He was just about to reply, when a loud shriek was heard from Jocko's place of banishment; a sort of scramble. ensued, and the next moment the door was thrown violently open, and in rushed the terrified landlady, screaming like a sea-gull, and bearing Jocko aloft upon her shoulders, from which "bad eminence" he was grinning and chattering with the fury of fifty devils. She ran twice round the room, and then sunk on the floor in hysterics. We lost no time in hastening to her assistance; but the war like Jocko, still sitting upon her, refused to permit one of us to approach. There he sat, turning from side to side, showing his sharp, white teeth, and uttering from time to time the most menacing and diabolical sounds. "What the deuce shall we do?" cried Dart more. "Do?" said Vincent, who was convulsed with laughter, and yet endeavouring to speak gravely; 66 why, watch like L. Opimius, ne quid respublica detrimenti caperet." “By Jove, Pelham, he will scratch out the lady's beaux yeux," cried the good-natured Dartmore, endeavouring to seize the monkey by the tail, for which he very narrowly escaped with an unmutilated visage. But the man who had before suffered by Jocko's ferocity, and whose breast was still swelling with revenge, was glad of so favourable an opportunity and excuse for wreaking it. He seized the poker, made three strides to Jocko, who set up an ineffable cry of defiance, and with a single blow split the skull of the unhappy monkey in twain. It fell with one convulsion on the ground, and gave up the ghost. We then raised the unfortunate landlady, placed her on the sofa, and Dartmore administered a plentiful potation of the Curaçoa punch. By slow degrees she revived, gave three most doleful suspirations, and then, starting up, gazed wildly around her. Half of us were still laughing-my unfortunate self among the number; this the enraged landlady no sooner perceived than she imagined herself the victim of some preconcerted villainy. Her lips trembled with passion-she uttered the most dreadful imprecations; and had I not retired into a corner, and armed myself with the dead body of Jocko, which I wielded with exceeding valour, she might, with the simple weapons with which nature had provided her hands, have for ever demolished the loves and graces that abide in the face of Henry Pelham. : When at last she saw that nothing hostile was at present to be effected, she drew herself up, and giving Bedos a tremendous box on the ear, as he stood grinning beside her, marched out of the room. We then again rallied around the table, more than ever disposed to be brilliant, and kept up till daybreak a continued fire of jests upon the heroine of the passage. “ Cum quâ (as Vincent observed) clauditur adversis innoxia simia fatis!" CHAPTER XXIII. Show me not thy painted beauties, GEORGE WITHERS. The cave of Falri smelt not more delicately-on every side appeared the marks of drunkenness and gluttony. At the upper end of the cave the sorcerer lay extended, &c. Mirglip the Persian, in the Tales of the Genii. I WOKE the next morning with an aching head and feverish frame. Ah, those midnight carousals, how glorious they would be if there was no next morning! I took my sauterne and sodawater in my dressing-room; and, as indisposition always makes me meditative, I thought over all I had done since my arrival at Paris. I had become (that, God knows, I soon manage to do) rather a talked of and noted character. It is true that I |