nt clearness, that the vestry-clerk's appetite for muffins, in
future, depended entirely on her vote on the beadleship. This was
sufficient: the stream had been turning previously, and the impulse thus
administered directed its final course. The Bung party ordered one
shilling's-worth of muffins weekly for the remainder of the old woman's
natural life; the parishioners were loud in their exclamations; and the
fate of Spruggins was sealed.

It was in vain that the twins were exhibited in dresses of the same
pattern, and night-caps, to match, at the church door: the boy in Mrs.
Spruggins's right arm, and the girl in her left--even Mrs. Spruggins
herself failed to be an object of sympathy any longer. The majority
attained by Bung on the gross poll was four hundred and twenty-eight, and
the cause of the parishioners triumphed.

CHAPTER V--THE BROKER'S MAN

The excitement of the late election has subsided, and our parish being
once again restored to a state of comparative tranquillity, we are
enabled to devote our attention to those parishioners who take little
share in our party contests or in the turmoil and bustle of public life.
And we feel sincere pleasure in acknowledging here, that in collecting
materials for this task we have been greatly assisted by Mr. Bung
himself, who has imposed on us a debt of obligation which we fear we can
never repay. The life of this gentleman has been one of a very chequered
description: he has undergone transitions--not from grave to gay, for he
never was grave--not from lively to severe, for severity forms no part of
his disposition; his fluctuations have been between poverty in the
extreme, and poverty modified, or, to use his own emphatic language,
'between nothing to eat and just half enough.' He is not, as he forcibly
remarks, 'one of those fortunate men who, if they were to dive under one
side of a barge stark-naked, would come up on the other with a new suit
of clothes on, and a ticket for soup in the waistcoat-pocket:' neither is
he one of those, whose spirit has been broken beyond redemption by
misfortune and want. He is just one of the careless, good-for-nothing,
happy fellows, who float, cork-like, on the surface, for the world to
play at hockey with: knocked here, and there, and everywhere: now to the
right, then to the left, again up in the air, and anon to the bottom, but
always reappearing and bounding with the stream buoyantly and merrily
along. Some few mon