importance of the proposition, every one around heard it;
and before Long Ned could answer, the full voice of Gentleman George
thundered forth,--

"Keep the peace there, you youngster! What! are you just admitted into
our merry-makings, and must you be wrangling already? Harkye, gemmen,
I have been plagued enough with your quarrels before now; and the first
cove as breaks the present quiet of the Jolly Angler shall be turned out
neck and crop,--sha' n't he, Attie?"

"Right about, march!" said the hero.

"Ay, that's the word, Attie," said Gentleman George. "And now, Mr.
Pepper, if there be any ill blood 'twixt you and the lad there, wash it
away in a bumper of bingo, and let's hear no more whatsomever about it."

"I'm willing," cried Long Ned, with the deferential air of a courtier,
and holding out his hand to Paul. Our hero, being somewhat abashed
by the novelty of his situation and the rebuke of Gentleman George,
accepted, though with some reluctance, the proffered courtesy.

Order being thus restored, the conversation of the convivialists began
to assume a most fascinating bias. They talked with infinite gout of
the sums they had levied on the public, and the peculations they had
committed for what one called the good of the community, and another,
the established order,--meaning themselves. It was easy to see in what
school the discerning Augustus Tomlinson had learned the value of words.

There was something edifying in hearing the rascals! So nice was their
language, and so honest their enthusiasm for their own interests, you
might have imagined you were listening to a coterie of cabinet ministers
conferring on taxes or debating on perquisites.

"Long may the Commons flourish!" cried punning Georgie, filling
his glass; "it is by the commons we're fed, and may they never know
cultivation!"

"Three times three!" shouted Long Ned; and the toast was drunk as Mr.
Pepper proposed.

"A little moderate cultivation of the commons, to speak frankly," said
Augustus Tomlinson, modestly, "might not be amiss; for it would decoy
people into the belief that they might travel safely; and, after all,
a hedge or a barley-field is as good for us as a barren heath, where we
have no shelter if once pursued!"

"You talks nonsense, you spooney!" cried a robber of note, called
Bagshot; who, being aged and having been a lawyer's footboy, was
sometimes denominated "Old Bags." "You talks nonsense; these innowating
ploughs are the