about town, turns out a failure:  the widows, who want their ten pounds each, disgusted at the offer of a few shillings, flock in a body to the nearest sitting magistrate, and clamorously lay their case before his worship, who gravely informs them, that the Charitable Chums’ Benefit Society being duly enrolled according to Act of Parliament, he can render them no assistance, as he is not authorised to interfere with their proceedings.

In the face of this exposure, the agitation for cramming the society down the throats of the public goes on more desperately than ever.  By this means, Mr Nogoe manages to hold on till Christmas, and then pocketing his salary, resigns his office in favour of Mr Dunderhead, who has hitherto figured as honorary Vice-Something, and who enters upon office with a gravity becoming the occasion.  Under his management, affairs are soon brought to a stand-still.  Notwithstanding his profound faith in the capabilities of the Charitable Chums, and his settled conviction that their immense body must embrace the elements of stability, his whole course is but one rapid descent down to the verge, and headlong over the precipice, of bankruptcy.  The dismal announcement of ‘no effects,’ first breathed in dolorous confidence at the bedsides of the sick, soon takes wind.  All the C.C.s in London are aghast and indignant at the news; and the ‘Mother Bunch’ is nightly assailed by tumultuous crowds of angry members, clamorous for justice and restitution.  The good lady who hangs over the doorway, in nowise abashed at the multitude, receives them all with open arms.  Indignation is as thirsty as jollity, and to their thirst at least she can administer, if she cannot repair their wrongs.  Nogoe has vanished from the locality of the now thriving inn and tavern of his friend Mr Peter Bowley, and in the character of a scapegoat, is gone forth to what point of the compass nobody exactly knows.  The last account of him is, that he had gone to the Isle of Man, where he endeavoured to get up a railway on the Exhaustive Principle, but without effect.  As for that excellent individual, Bowley, he appears among the diddled and disconsolate Chums in the character of a martyr to their interests.  A long arrear of rent is due to him, as well as a lengthy bill for refreshments to the various committees, for which he might, if he chose, attach the properties in his keeping.  He scorns such an ungentlemanly act, and freely gives them up; but as nobody knows what to do with them, as, if they were sold, they would not yield a farthing each to the host of members, they remain rolled up in his garret, and are likely to remain till they rot, the sole memorials of a past glory.

The Charitable Chums’ Benefit Society has fulfilled its destiny, and answered the end of its creation.  It has made the world acquainted with the undeniable merits of ‘Mother Bunch,’ and encircled that modest matron with a host of bibulous and admiring votaries; it has elevated Bowley from the class of struggling and desponding speculators, to a substantial and influential member of the Licensed Victuallers’ Company:  it has at once vastly improved the colour of his nose and the aspect of his bank-account; and while he complacently fingers the cash which it has caused to flow in a continual current into his pocket, he looks remarkably well in the character of chief mourner over its untimely fate.