How the ancient custom at nuptials is renewed by the catchpole.

The catchpole, having made shift to get down a swingeing sneaker of Breton wine, said to Basche, Pray, sir, what do you mean? You do not give one another the memento of the wedding. By St. Joseph’s wooden shoe, all good customs are forgot. We find the form, but the hare is scampered; and the nest, but the birds are flown. There are no true friends nowadays. You see how, in several churches, the ancient laudable custom of tippling on account of the blessed saints O O, at Christmas, is come to nothing. The world is in its dotage, and doomsday is certainly coming all so fast. Now come on; the wedding, the wedding, the wedding; remember it by this. This he said, striking Basche and his lady; then her women and the levite. Then the tabor beat a point of war, and the gauntlets began to do their duty; insomuch that the catchpole had his crown cracked in no less than nine places. One of the bums had his right arm put out of joint, and the other his upper jaw-bone or mandibule dislocated so that it hid half his chin, with a denudation of the uvula, and sad loss of the molar, masticatory, and canine teeth. Then the tabor beat a retreat; the gauntlets were carefully hid in a trice, and sweetmeats afresh distributed to renew the mirth of the company. So they all drank to one another, and especially to the catchpole and his bums. But Oudart cursed and damned the wedding to the pit of hell, complaining that one of the bums had utterly disincornifistibulated his nether shoulder-blade. Nevertheless, he scorned to be thought a flincher, and made shift to tope to him on the square.

The jawless bum shrugged up his shoulders, joined his hands, and by signs begged his pardon; for speak he could not. The sham bridegroom made his moan, that the crippled bum had struck him such a horrid thump with his shoulder-of-mutton fist on the nether elbow that he was grown quite esperruquanchuzelubelouzerireliced down to his very heel, to the no small loss of mistress bride.

But what harm had poor I done? cried Trudon, hiding his left eye with his kerchief, and showing his tabor cracked on one side; they were not satisfied with thus poaching, black and bluing, and morrambouzevezengouzequoquemorgasacbaquevezinemaffreliding my poor eyes, but they have also broke my harmless drum. Drums indeed are commonly beaten at weddings, and it is fit they should; but drummers are well entertained and never beaten. Now let Beelzebub e’en take the drum, to make his devilship a nightcap. Brother, said the lame catchpole, never fret thyself; I will make thee a present of a fine, large, old patent, which I have here in my bag, to patch up thy drum, and for Madame St. Ann’s sake I pray thee forgive us. By Our Lady of Riviere, the blessed dame, I meant no more harm than the child unborn. One of the equerries, who, hopping and halting like a mumping cripple, mimicked the good limping Lord de la Roche Posay, directed his discourse to the bum with the pouting jaw, and told him: What, Mr. Manhound, was it not enough thus to have morcrocastebezasteverestegrigeligoscopapopondrillated us all in our upper members with your botched m............