eady the knives and forks are laid
out upon the long deal table. The little coffee-room--so called,
though whiskey-room, or punch-room, or porter-room would be much
the more appropriate name, unless indeed there is a kind of "_lucus
a non lucendo_" propriety in the appellation--is full nearly to
suffocation. There is not an unoccupied chair or corner of a table to
be found.

Large men half wet through--reeking, smelling most unwholesomely as
the rain steams up from their clothes--are keeping the cold out of
their stomachs by various spirituous appliances. The room is half
covered with damp straw, which has been kicked in from the passage;
the windows are closed, and there is a huge fire burning on the other
side of that moist mass of humanity. On entering the room you feel
that you breathe nothing but second-hand rain; a sojourn there
you find to be impossible; the porter drinkers are still in your
bed-room, even on your bed up-stairs. What are you to do? where are
you to go? Back home you cannot. You have a summons in your pocket;
you have been unfortunately present when Mr. Terence O'Flanagan
squeezed the fair hand of Miss Letitia Murphy; false Mr. Terence
O'Flanagan would not come to the matrimonial altar when required;
fair Miss Letitia Murphy demands damages, and you must swear to the
fact of the hand having been squeezed as aforesaid. Who can tell when
the case may come on? Rumour comes from the clerk of the peace, town
clerk, or some other clerk who sits there in pride of place, always
conspicuous under the judge's feet, and whispers that Letitia Murphy,
spinster, is coming on next. Attorneys' clerks have been round
diligently to all witnesses, especially as it seems to yourself,
warning you that the important hour is at hand--that on no account
may you be absent, so much as ten minutes' walk from the court.
Vainly you think to yourself that it can hardly be of such vital
import that you, her father's friend, saw little Letty Murphy's hand
ensconced one evening in the brawny palm of that false Lothario
O'Flanagan; yes, of serious import is it--if not to Letty, or to
Terence--yet to that facetious barrister, Mr. O'Laugher, who, at your
expense, is going to amuse the dull court for a brief half-hour,--and
of importance to yourself, who are about to become the laughing-stock
of your county for the next twelve months. It is, therefore, evident
that you cannot leave the filthy town with its running gutters--the
filt