Servant. Get away, I say, wid dat nasty bell.

Punch. Do you call this a bell? (patting it.) It is an organ.

Servant. I say it is a bell — a nasty bell!

Punch. I say it is an organ (striking him with it). What do you say it is now?

Servant. An organ, Mr. Punch!

The Tragical Comedy of Punch and Judy.

The next morning, before Lucy and her father had left their apartments, Brandon, who was a remarkably early riser, had disturbed the luxurious Mauleverer in his first slumber. Although the courtier possessed a villa some miles from Bath, he preferred a lodging in the town, both as being warmer than a rarely inhabited country-house, and as being to an indolent man more immediately convenient for the gayeties and the waters of the medicinal city. As soon as the earl had rubbed his eyes, stretched himself, and prepared himself for the untimeous colloquy, Brandon poured forth his excuses for the hour he had chosen for a visit. “Mention it not, my dear Brandon,” said the good-natured nobleman, with a sigh; “I am glad at any hour to see you, and I am very sure that what you have to communicate is always worth listening to.”

“It was only upon public business, though of rather a more important description than usual, that I ventured to disturb you,” answered Brandon, seating himself on a chair by the bedside. “This morning, an hour ago, I received by private express a letter from London, stating that a new arrangement will positively be made in the Cabinet — nay, naming the very promotions and changes. I confess that as my name occurred, as also your own, in these nominations, I was anxious to have the benefit of your necessarily accurate knowledge on the subject, as well as of your advice.”

“Really, Brandon,” said Mauleverer, with a half-peevish smile, “any other hour in the day would have done for ‘the business of the nation,’ as the newspapers call that troublesome farce we go through; and I had imagined you would not have broken my nightly slumbers except for something of real importance — the discovery of a new beauty or the invention of a new dish.”

“Neither the one nor the other could you have expected from me, my dear lord,” rejoined Brandon. “You know the dry trifles in which a lawyer’s life wastes itself away; and beauties and dishes have no attraction for us, except the former be damsels deserted, and the latter patents invaded. But my news, after all, is worth hearing, unless you have heard it before.”

“Not I! but I suppose I shall hear it in the course of the day. Pray Heaven I be not sent for to attend some plague of a council. Begin!”

“In the first place Lord Duberly resolves to resign, unless this negotiation for peace be made a Cabinet question.”

“Pshaw! let him resign. I have opposed the peace so long that it is out of the question. Of course, Lord Wansted will not think of it, and he may count on my boroughs. A peace! — shameful, disgraceful, dastardly proposition!”

“But, my dear lord, my letter says that this unexpected firmness on the part of Lord Daberly has produced so great a sensation that, seeing the impossibility of forming a durable Cabinet without him, the king has consented to the negotiation, and Duberly stays in!”

“The devil! — what next?”

“Raffden and Sternhold go out in favour of Baldwin and Charlton, and in the hope that you will lend your aid to —”

“I!” said Lord Mauleverer, very angrily — “I lend my aid to Baldwin, the Jacobin, and Charlton, the son of a brewer!”

“Very true!” continued Brandon. “But in the hope that you might be persuaded to regard the new arrangements with an indulgent eye, you are talked of instead of the Duke of for the vacant garter and the office of chamberlain.”

“You don’t mean it!” cried Mauleverer, starting from his bed.

“A few other (but, I hear, chiefly legal) promotions are to be made. Among the rest, my learned brother, the democrat Sarsden, is to have a silk gown; Cromwell is to be attorney-general; and, between ourselves, they have offered me a judgeship.”

“But the garter!” said Mauleverer, scarcely hearing the rest of the lawyer’s news — “the whole object, aim, and ambition of my life. How truly kind in the king! After all,” continued the earl, laughing, and throwing himself back, “opinions are variable, truth is not uniform. The times change, not we; and we must have peace instead of war!”

“Your maxims are indisputable, and the conclusion you come to is excellent,” said Brandon.

“Why, you and I, my dear fellow,” said the earl, “who know men, and who have lived all our lives in the world, must laugh behind the scenes at the cant we wrap in tinsel, and send out to stalk across the stage. We know that our Coriolanus of Tory integrity is a corporal kept by a prostitute, and the Brutus of Whig liberty is a lacquey turned out of place for stealing the spoons; but we must not tell this to the world. So, Brandon, you must write me a speech for the next session, and be sure it has plenty of general maxims, and concludes with ‘my bleeding country!’”

The lawyer smiled. “You consent then to the expulsion of Sternhold and Raffden? for, after all, that is the question. Our British vessel, as the d —— d metaphor-mongers call the State, carries the public good safe in the hold like brandy; and it is only when fear, storm, or the devil makes the rogues quarrel among themselves and break up the casks, that one gets above a thimbleful at a time. We should go on fighting with the rest of the world forever, if the ministers had not taken to fight among themselves.”

“As for Sternhold,” said the earl, “‘t is a vulgar dog, and voted for economical reform. Besides, I don’t know him; he may go to the devil, for aught I care; but Raffden must be dealt handsomely with, or, despite the garter, I will fall back among the Whigs, who, after all, give tolerable dinners.”

“But why, my lord, must Raffden be treated better than his brother recusant?”

“Because he sent me, in the handsomest manner possible, a pipe of that wonderful Madeira, which you know I consider the chief grace of my cellars, and he gave up a canal navigation bill, which would have enriched his whole county, when he knew that it would injure my property. No, Brandon, curse public cant! we know what that is. But we are gentlemen, and our private friends must not be thrown overboard — unless, at least, we do it in the civilest manner we can.”

“Fear not,” said the lawyer; “you have only to say the word, and the Cabinet can cook up an embassy to Owhyhee, and send Raffden there with a stipend of five thousand a year.”

“Ah! that’s well thought of; or we might give him a grant of a hundred thousand acres in one of the colonies, or let him buy crown land at a discount of eighty per cent. So that’s settled.”

“And now, my dear friend,” said Brandon, “I will tell you frankly why I come so early; I am required to give a hasty answer to the proposal I have received, namely, of the judgeship. Your opinion?”

“A judgeship! you a judge? What! forsake your brilliant career for so petty a dignity? You jest!”

“Not at all. Listen. You know how bitterly I have opposed this peace, and what hot enemies I have made among the new friends of the administration. On the one hand, these enemies insist on sacrificing me; and on the other, if I were to stay in the Lower House and speak for what I have before opposed, I should forfeit the support of a great portion of my own p............