e gentlemen will think you in earnest. I have brought three new
customers to the club."

This speech somewhat softened the incensed Houri of Mr. Gordon's
Paradise, and she very civilly asked us to enter.

"Stop!" said Mr. Gordon with an air of importance, "I must just step in
and ask the gentlemen to admit you;--merely a form--for a word from me
will be quite sufficient." And so saying, he vanished for about five
minutes.

On his return, he said, with a cheerful countenance, that we were free
of the house, but that we must pay a shilling each as the customary
fee. This sum was soon collected, and quietly inserted in the waistcoat
pocket of our chaperon, who then conducted us up the passage into a
small back room, where were sitting about seven or eight men, enveloped
in smoke, and moistening the fever of the Virginian plant with various
preparations of malt. On entering, I observed Mr. Gordon deposit, at a
sort of bar, the sum of three-pence, by which I shrewdly surmised he
had gained the sum of two and nine-pence by our admission. With a very
arrogant air, he proceeded to the head of the table, sat himself down
with a swagger, and called out, like a lusty royster of the true kidney,
for a pint of purl and a pipe. Not to be out of fashion, we ordered the
same articles of luxury.

After we had all commenced a couple of puffs at our pipes, I looked
round at our fellow guests; they seemed in a very poor state of body,
as might naturally be supposed; and, in order to ascertain how far the
condition of the mind was suited to that of the frame, I turned round to
Mr. Gordon, and asked him in a whisper to give us a few hints as to the
genus and characteristics of the individual components of his club.
Mr. Gordon declared himself delighted with the proposal, and we all
adjourned to a separate table at the corner of the room, where Mr.
Gordon, after a deep draught at the purl, thus began:--"You observe
yon thin, meagre, cadaverous animal, with rather an intelligent and
melancholy expression of countenance--his name is Chitterling Crabtree:
his father was an eminent coal-merchant, and left him L10,000. Crabtree
turned politician. When fate wishes to ruin a man of moderate abilities
and moderate fortune, she makes him an orator. Mr. Chitterling Crabtree
attended all the meetings at the Crown and Anchor--subscribed to the
aid of the suffering friends of freedom--harangued, argued, sweated,
wrote--was fined and imprisoned--regain