Weigh me the two, you Daniel, going to judgment, when your day
shall come! Weigh them, in the eyes of suffering thousands,
audience (not unmindful) of the grim farce you play. Or supposing
that you strayed from your five wits--it's not so far to go, but
that it might be--and laid hands upon that throat of yours, warning
your fellows (if you have a fellow) how they croak their
comfortable wickedness to raving heads and stricken hearts. What
then?

The words rose up in Trotty's breast, as if they had been spoken by
some other voice within him. Alderman Cute pledged himself to Mr.
Fish that he would assist him in breaking the melancholy
catastrophe to Sir Joseph when the day was over. Then, before they
parted, wringing Mr. Fish's hand in bitterness of soul, he said,
'The most respectable of men!' And added that he hardly knew (not
even he), why such afflictions were allowed on earth.

'It's almost enough to make one think, if one didn't know better,'
said Alderman Cute, 'that at times some motion of a capsizing
nature was going on in things, which affected the general economy
of the social fabric. Deedles Brothers!'

The skittle-playing came off with immense success. Sir Joseph
knocked the pins about quite skilfully; Master Bowley took an
innings at a shorter distance also; and everybody said that now,
when a Baronet and the Son of a Baronet played at skittles, the
country was coming round again, as fast as it could come.

At its proper time, the Banquet was served up. Trotty
involuntarily repaired to the Hall with the rest, for he felt