nd
the governor gives so much per head for destroying them. Mr. Simpson, in
the office, will give you full information. You are to be at your post
by the 1st of August.'

"'Might I make bold to ask where Whackatory is?'

"'Oackatoro, sir,' said he, proudly, 'is the capital of Fighi. I trust I
need not say where that is.'

"'By no means,' said I, modestly; and, muttering my thanks for the
advancement, I backed out, almost deranged to think that I did n't know
where I was going.

"'Where is it? What is it? How much is it, O'Shea?' cried thirty ardent
voices, as I entered the club.

"'It's five hundred a year,' said I, 'without counting the monkeys. It's
a magistrate's place; but may a gooseberry skin make a nightcap for me
if I know where the devil it is!'

"'But you have accepted!' cried they out, all together.

"'I have,' said I. 'I'm to be at Fighi, wherever that is, by the 1st of
August. And now,' said I, turning to the fire, and taking up the poker,
'there is nothing for me to do but resign this sacred symbol of my
office into the hands of my successor.'

"Where's O'Dowd?' shouted out the crowd. And they awoke out of a
pleasant sleep a little old fellow that never missed his day for two
years at the club.

"'Gentlemen,' said I, in a voice trembling with feeling, 'the hour is
come when my destiny is to separate me from you forever; an hour that
is equally full of the past and the future, and has even no small share
of present emotions. If ever there were a human institution devised to
cement together the hearts and affections of men, to bind them into one
indissoluble mass, and blend their instincts into identity, it is the
club we have here. Here we stand, like the departed spirits at the Styx,
waiting for the bark of Charon to ferry us over. To what, however? Is it
to some blessed elysium of a Poor Law Commissioner's place, or is it
to some unknown fate in a distant land, with five hundred a year and an
allowance for monkeys? That's the question, there's the rub! as Hamlet
says.' After dilating at large on this, I turned to O'Dowd. 'To your
hands,' said I, 'I commit this venerable relic: keep it, guard it,
honor it, and preserve it. Remember,' said I, 'that when you stir those
coals it is the symbol of keeping alive in the heart the sparks of an
undying hope; that though they may wet the slack and water the cinders
of our nature, the fire within us will still survive, red, glowing, and
generous. Is n't t