Squire Headlong. Bravo!  Pass the bottle.  The very best speech that ever was made.

Mr Escot. It has only the slight disadvantage of being unintelligible.

Mr Panscope. I am not obliged, sir, as Dr Johnson observed on a similar occasion, to furnish you with an understanding.

Mr Escot. I fear, sir, you would have some difficulty in furnishing me with such an article from your own stock.

Mr Panscope. ’Sdeath, sir, do you question my understanding?

Mr Escot. I only question, sir, where I expect a reply; which, from things that have no existence, I am not visionary enough to anticipate.

Mr Panscope. I beg leave to observe, sir, that my language was perfectly perspicuous, and etymologically correct; and, I conceive, I have demonstrated what I shall now take the liberty to say in plain terms, that all your opinions are extremely absurd.

Mr Escot. I should be sorry, sir, to advance any opinion that you would not think absurd.

Mr Panscope. Death and fury, sir——­

Mr Escot. Say no more, sir.  That apology is quite sufficient.

Mr Panscope. Apology, sir?

Mr Escot. Even so, sir.  You have lost your temper, which I consider equivalent to a confession that you have the worst of the argument.

Mr Panscope. Lightning and devils! sir——­

Squire Headlong. No civil war!—­Temperance, in the name of Bacchus!—­A glee! a glee! Music has charms to bend the knotted oak. Sir Patrick, you’ll join?

Sir Patrick O’Prism. Troth, with all my heart; for, by my soul, I’m bothered completely.

Squire Headlong. Agreed, then; you, and I, and Chromatic.  Bumpers!  Come, strike up.

Squire Headlong, Mr Chromatic, and Sir Patrick O’Prism, each holding a bumper, immediately vociferated the following

        GLEE

    A heeltap! a heeltap!  I never could bear it! 
    So fill me a bumper, a bumper of claret! 
    Let the bottle pass freely, don’t shirk it nor spare it,
    For a heeltap! a heeltap!  I never could bear it!

    No skylight! no twilight! while Bacchus rules o’er us: 
    No thinking! no shrinking! all drinking in chorus: 
    Let us moisten our clay, since ’tis thirsty and porous: 
    No thinking! no shrinking! all drinking in chorus!

        GRAND CHORUS

By Squire Headlong, Mr Chromatic, Sir Patrick O’Prism, Mr Panscope, Mr Jenkison, Mr Gall, Mr Treacle, Mr Nightshade, Mr Mac Laurel, Mr Cranium, Mr Milestone, and the Reverend Dr Gaster.

    A heeltap! a heeltap!  I never could bear it! 
    So fill me a bumper, a bumper of claret! 
    Let the bottle pass freely, don’t shirk it nor spare it,
    For a heeltap! a heeltap!  I never could bear it!

    ‘OMADOS KAI DOUPOS OROREI’