Cries of ‘Got something better!’ took up the blunt address.

‘You’ve been true to it, most of you.  I like men not to forget a custom.’

‘Good reason so to be,’ and ‘A jolly good custom,’ replied to both sentences.

’As to the beef, I hope you didn’t find it tough:  as to the ale—­I know all about that!’

‘Aha! good!’ rang the verdict.

’All I can say is, that this day next year it will be on the table, and I hope that every one of you will meet Tom—­will meet me here punctually.  I’m not a Parliament man, so that ‘ll do.’

The chairman’s breach of his own rules drowned the termination of his speech in an uproar.

Re-seating himself, he lifted his glass, and proposed:  ’The Antediluvians!’

Farmer Broadmead echoed:  ‘The Antediloovians!’ appending, as a private sentiment, ‘And dam rum chaps they were!’

The Antediluvians, undoubtedly the toast of the evening, were enthusiastically drunk, and in an ale of treble brew.

When they had quite gone down, Mr. Raikes ventured to ask for the reason of their receiving such honour from a posterity they had so little to do with.  He put the question mildly, but was impetuously snapped at by the chairman.

’You respect men for their luck, sir, don’t you?  Don’t be a hypocrite, and say you don’t—­you do.  Very well:  so do I. That’s why I drink “The Antediluvians"!’

‘Our worthy host here’ (Drummond, gravely smiling, undertook to elucidate the case) ’has a theory that the constitutions of the Postdiluvians have been deranged, and their lives shortened, by the miasmas of the Deluge.  I believe he carries it so far as to say that Noah, in the light of a progenitor, is inferior to Adam, owing to the shaking he had to endure in the ark, and which he conceives to have damaged the patriarch and the nervous systems of his sons.  It’s a theory, you know.’

‘They lived close on a thousand years, hale, hearty—­and no water!’ said the chairman.

‘Well!’ exclaimed one, some way down the table, a young farmer, red as a cock’s comb:  ’no fools they, eh, master?  Where there’s ale, would you drink water, my hearty?’ and back he leaned to enjoy the tribute to his wit; a wit not remarkable, but nevertheless sufficient in the noise it created to excite the envy of Mr. Raikes, who, inveterately silly when not engaged in a contest, now began to play on the names of the sons of Noah.

The chairman lanced a keen light at him from beneath his bushy eyebrows.

Before long he had again to call two parties to order.  To Raikes, Laxley was a puppy:  to Laxley, Mr. Raikes was a snob.  The antagonism was natural:  ale did but put the match to the magazine.  But previous to an explosion, Laxley, who had observed Evan’s disgust at Jack’s exhibition of himself, and had been led to think, by his conduct and clothes in conjunction, that Evan was his own equal; a gentleman condescending to the society of