fied at receiving so highly respectable a
company, and expressed more than once his satisfaction at finding that
we were so ready to act in the cause of charity as to sacrifice our
valuable time, and unite together for the succour of the distressed.
He addressed us, in fact, for nearly a minute and a half; after which,
as time was pressing, and others were waiting to be presented, we were
signaled forward to a side-door, and made a very sudden exit into the
street, whence we marched back to the vestry to disrobe, with the
exception of some few of our number, who knowing that the business of
the charity was done for the day, abandoned their cloaks to the care
of the owner, who contrives generally to be in attendance at this
critical moment, and proceeded to look after their own private
affairs. We all met, however, in the evening, and partook of a
substantial dinner, to which, according to a custom which has
prevailed from time immemorial, the church-wardens of the parish and
the foreman and treasurer of the inquest of the preceding year were
invited. The dinner went off, as a dinner should do, with perfect
harmony and good-feeling; and some very excellent speeches were made
on the subject of the inquest--its undeniable efficacy and utility,
and its great antiquity. We broke up at a sober hour, each member
being charged to present himself at the vestry at nine in the morning
on that day week, under the penalty of half-a-guinea.

It would have suited my interests very well, when the day came round,
to have forfeited my half-guinea, and have attended exclusively to my
own business; but judging it more to my credit to go through with the
work I had undertaken, I was at my post, together with several of my
colleagues, before the hour had struck. Some of our members did not
come at all the first day, but sent their half-guineas; others, having
to come in from the suburbs before omnibus-time, arrived too late, and
were fined in smaller sums for the breach of punctuality. Our party
being at length complete, to the number of ten, we indue our cloaks,
and, pioneered by the ward-beadle with his ponderous mace, we sally
forth to feel the charitable pulse of several parishes. Ten good men
and true, swathed to the chin in voluminous folds of broad-cloth
fringed with fur, and headed by the ample proportions of the
mace-bearer in scarlet and cloth of gold; our apparition, and our
mission too, were plainly a mystery to the major part of