CHAPTER XXIII.

Going home in the Morning.

After having thrown all his Ritualistic friends at home into a most unholy and exasperated condition of mind, by a steady series of vague remarks as to the extreme likelihood of their united implication in the possible deed of darkness by which he has lost a broadcloth nephew and an alpaca umbrella, the mournful Mr. Bumstead is once more awaiting the dawn in that popular retreat in Mulberry Street where he first contracted his taste for cloves.  The Assistant-Assessor and the Alderman of the Ward are again there, tilted back against the wall in their chairs; their shares in the Congressional Nominating Convention held in that room earlier in the night having left them too weary for further locomotion.  The decanters and tumblers hurled by the Nominating Convention over the question of which Irishman could drink the most to be nominated, are still scattered about the floor; here and there a forgotten slungshot marks the places where rival delegations have confidently presented their claims for recognition; and a few bullet-holes in the wall above the bar enumerate the various pauses in the great debate upon the perils of the public peace from Negro Suffrage.

Reclining with great ease of attitude upon an uncushioned settee, the Ritualistic organist is aroused from dreamy slumber by the turning-over of the pipe in his mouth, and majestically motions for the venerable woman of the house to come and brush the ashes from his clothes.

“Wud yez have it filled again, honey?” asks the woman.  “Sure, wan pipe more would do ye no harrum.”

“I’mtooshleepy,” he says, dropping the pipe.

“An’ are yez too shlapey, asthore, to talk a little bissiness wid an ould woman?” she asks, insinuatingly.  “Couldn’t yez be afther payin’ me the bit av a schore I’ve got agin ye?”

Mr. Bumstead opens his eyes reproachfully, and wishes to know how she can dare talk about money matters to an organist who, at almost any moment, may be obliged to see a Chinaman hired in his place on account of cheapness?

“Could the haythen crayture play, thin?” she asks, wonderingly.

“Thairvairimitative,” he tells her;—­“Cookwashiron’ n’ eatbirdsnests.”

“An’ vote would they, honey?”

“Yesh—­’f course—­thairvairimitative, I tell y’,” snarls he:  “do’tcheapzdirt.”

“Is it vote chaper they would, the haythen naygurs, than daycint, hardworkin’ white min?” she asks, excitedly.

“Yesh.  Chinesecheaplabor,” he says, bitterly.

“Och, hone!” cries the woman, in anguish; “and f’hat’s the poor to do then, honey?”

“Gowest; go’nfarm!” sobs Mr. Bumstead, shedding tears.  “I’d go m’self if a-hadn’t lost dear-er-rerelative.—­Nephew’n’ umbrella.”

“Saint PAYTHER! an’ f’hat’s that?”