letter, in which Nicholas Tulrumble informed the
corporation, that he intended repairing to the town-hall, in grand state
and gorgeous procession, on the Monday afternoon next ensuing. At this
the corporation looked still more solemn; but, as the epistle wound up
with a formal invitation to the whole body to dine with the Mayor on that
day, at Mudfog Hall, Mudfog Hill, Mudfog, they began to see the fun of
the thing directly, and sent back their compliments, and they'd be sure
to come.

Now there happened to be in Mudfog, as somehow or other there does happen
to be, in almost every town in the British dominions, and perhaps in
foreign dominions too--we think it very likely, but, being no great
traveller, cannot distinctly say--there happened to be, in Mudfog, a
merry-tempered, pleasant-faced, good-for-nothing sort of vagabond, with
an invincible dislike to manual labour, and an unconquerable attachment
to strong beer and spirits, whom everybody knew, and nobody, except his
wife, took the trouble to quarrel with, who inherited from his ancestors
the appellation of Edward Twigger, and rejoiced in the _sobriquet_ of
Bottle-nosed Ned. He was drunk upon the average once a day, and penitent
upon an equally fair calculation once a month; and when he was penitent,
he was invariably in the very last stage of maudlin intoxication. He was
a ragged, roving, roaring kind of fellow, with a burly form, a sharp wit,
and a ready head, and could turn his hand to anything when he chose to do
it. He was by no means opposed to hard labour on principle, for he would
work away at a cricket-match by the day together,--running, and catching,
and batting, and bowling, and revelling in toil which would exhaust a
galley-slave. He would have been invaluable to a fire-office; never was
a man with such a natural taste for pumping engines, running up ladders,
and throwing furniture out of two-pair-of-stairs' windows: nor was this
the only element in which he was at home; he was a humane society in
himself, a portable drag, an animated life-preserver, and had saved more
people, in his time, from drowning, than the Plymouth life-boat, or
Captain Manby's apparatus. With all these qualifications,
notwithstanding his dissipation, Bottle-nosed Ned was a general
favourite; and the authorities of Mudfog, remembering his numerous
services to the population, allowed him in return to get drunk in his own
way, without the fear of stocks, fine, or imprisonmen