drinking old women in mob-caps,
raising their pious eyes and snuffy noses to heaven.--Ha, ha, ha! Why,
ladies and gentlemen, that editor is so cursedly dishonest and so
im--_mensely_ mean, that his hair wouldn't stay black, but turned to a
dirty white before its time--so mean, his food won't digest easy--his
shirt won't dry when washed--his clothes won't fit him--the cholera
won't have him--musquitoes won't bite him--and if, after his lean
carcass is huddled under the turf, his cunning little soul should
attempt to crawl through the key-hole of hell's gate, the devil, whose
lacky he has ever been, would kick him with as much disgust as this
_fraction_ once displayed in kicking a poor wretch whom he had
beggared, starved and ruined!

"But I see, comrades, that you begin to grow impatient at this
moralizing--and well you may, for 'tis always distasteful to look at
such reptiles as we have been contemplating. Well, to take up the
thread of my yarn, which I shall bring to a close as speedily as
possible, for 'tis getting late.--When the Captain proposed that I
should murder Lord Hawley, his and her ladyship's hypocrisy enraged me
to such an extent, that I boldly looked him in the face, and said to
him--

"'Say, who is the greater villain, you or I? You, who prate of your
birth, rank and position in life, and propose a murder, or I, making
no pretensions whatever, I that have committed a murder at the
instigation of one of your class, in the hope of reward? Look you,
Captain; neither you nor your noble strumpet at your side shall bribe
me to commit further crime. Wretches that you both are, false in honor
and in truth, know that I am already fearfully revenged upon you--and
your exposure is at hand. Another murder, indeed!--_have you not both
drank blood enough?_'

"This last sentence I uttered with such significance that the Captain
started and turned pale. 'What mean you, scoundrel?' he demanded.

"'Follow me, both of you, to the wine cellar!' I exclaimed in answer,
fully determined to reveal the awful truth to them at once. Astonished
and subdued by the impressiveness of my manner and the singularity of
my words, they obeyed. Having seized a light from the table, I led
the way to the cellar, and advanced to the cask wherein rotted the
remains of the murdered Lagrange.

"The scene must have been a striking one, comrades. There was the vast
va