e cents
for contempt of club.

[Illustration]

Over an hour was now passed in a state of inactivity. Some of the
members slept and some didn't. As a means of inducing excitement of some
kind, a member signalized the institution on the first floor for pork
and beans for the entire crowd. This was promptly answered, and for a
time the club had enough to engage its attention. After the aforesaid
luxuries had been duly disposed of, the members proceeded to take seats,
lie on the floor, prop themselves against the wall, and hang themselves
up on a peg, as best suited their independent fancies. The presiding
officer announced that the rules on this occasion would be enforced
strictly. Accordingly, each individual present began to do exactly what
pleased him, without any regard to the comfort, convenience, or personal
predilections of anybody else. The Higholdboy first secured the left
boot of every member present. After pulling a boot on each leg of the
table, he put one on each of his hands, like a gauntlet, and then laid
the seventh on the table. The object of Mr. Spout, in pursuing this
eccentric course of conduct, soon became apparent, when he laid himself
on the table, using the aforesaid solitary boot as a pillow, it being
manifest that he desired to preclude the possibility of an adjournment
during the nap, and inasmuch as it would be found inconvenient for the
members to leave the premises with but a single pedal covering, and as
it would be impossible for a member to secure the other, without
awakening the most venerable and exceedingly somnolent Higholdboy, it
will be apparent to the credulous reader that Mr. Spout's idea was quite
ingenious.

Under these circumstances, each member determined to make himself as
comfortable as the time, the place, and the conveniences would admit of.

Mr. Boggs was lying flat on his back, trying to drink a hot whisky-punch
without breaking the tumbler, spilling the liquor, or getting the sugar
inside his whiskers. Mr. Overdale was learning "juggling without a
master," and was endeavoring to spin plates on his whalebone cane. In
striving to acquire this elegant accomplishment, he had broken all the
dishes in the premises. As he varied his plate-spinning endeavors with
repeated trials at tossing the cups and balls, for which purpose he used
the tumblers and coffee-cups, and as, whenever he caught one cup, he
dropped two, and stepped on the fragments, the work of demolition went
br