s teetottal
strict enough."

"I have it!" cried a man, the expression of whose face was a sad mixture
of sensuality, shrewdness, and malice. "I'll just tell you what we'll
do. You know how people keeps saying--`What a changed man Johnson is!
how respectable and clean he looks! how tidy he's dressed when he goes
to church on a Sunday!--you've only to look in his face to see he's a
changed man.' Now, I'll just tell you what we'll do, if you've a mind
to stand by me and give me a help. It'll do him no harm in the end,
and'll just take a little of the conceit out on him. And won't it just
spoil their sport at the meeting!"

"Tell us what it is, man," cried all the others eagerly.

"Well, you know the water-butt at the back of Thomas's house. Well, you
can reach the windows of the chamber by standing on the butt. The
window's not hard to open, for I've often seen Alice throw it up; and
I'm sure it's not fastened. Now, just suppose we waits till the night
afore the meeting; that'll be the twenty-second--there'll be no moon
then. Thomas won't be in the night-shift that week. I know he sleeps
sound, for I've heard their Betty say as it were the only thing as kept
'em up, that they slept both on 'em so well. Suppose, then, as we gets
a goodish-sized furze bush or two, and goes round to the back about two
o'clock in the morning. We must have a rope or two; then we must take
off our clogs, and climb up by the water-butt. The one as goes up first
must have a dark lantern. Well, then, we must creep quietly in, and
just lap a rope loosely round the bed till we're all ready. Then we'll
just tighten the rope so that he can't move, and I'll scratch his sweet
face all over with the furze; and one of you chaps must have some
gunpowder and lamp-black ready to rub it well into his face where it's
been scratched. You must stuff a clout into his mouth if he offers to
holler. We can do it all in two minutes by the help of the lantern.
The light'll dazzle him so as he'll not be able to make any on us out;
and then we must slip out of the window and be off afore he's had time
to wriggle himself out of the ropes. Eh, won't he be a lovely pictur
next day!--his best friends, as they say, won't know him. Won't he just
look purty at the meeting! There's a model teetottaller for you! Do
you think he'll have the face to say then, `You've heard, ladies and
gentlemen, what I once was; you see what I am now?' Oh, what a rare
game