“Silence, you addle-heads,” he thundered, as soon as he saw they were getting beyond their depths—“can’t one of you sing at a time, without keeping up such an infernal clatter of Dutch, French, English and Congo songs? You remind me of a set of chaps I had the honor to dine with in Boston—no, not the honor, for they all drank to excess—and a man in that state” (and here the worthy speaker, by way of corollary, tossed off a bumper) “is a shock to my moral feelings. Keep in soundings if you can’t sail safely out of them; but, for heaven’s sake, don’t disgrace our table with a set of indecent inebriates.
“But, to come back to my story—you must know that the Governor’s Guards, in Boston, are a gay set of youngsters, and, at their annual dinner at the State House, they make the corks fly as I’ve seen only grape shot showering from a battery. Well—no disrespect to the cloth—their dinner is always opened and closed by a parson; and a good rule it is; for when the governor sees that his youngsters are getting heady, he has but to give a nod—the benediction is pronounced, and they are forced to break up. When I was there, however, his excellency postponed the dismissal rather too long, so that when he gave the signal to the parson, there wasn’t a chap, at the lower end of the table, who could carry his wine to his mouth without spilling half of the liquid. A blessed sight it was to see them then—as proper a set of youngsters, in general, as you’d wish to look upon—shouting, laughing, singing, standing in chairs, waving their glasses on high, and altogether cutting a figure not the most pleasant for a moral man like me to behold. They saw the parson get up and they heard him begin to speak, but they were too far gone to distinguish either his person or his words.
“‘Hilloo, Bill,’ said one to his neighbor, ‘is that a new toast? What does he say?’
“‘Can’t—make—it out,’ hiccuped Bill, with drunken gravity, ‘but I guess—it’s—it’s—something con—found—ed fine. Let’s give the old cock three cheers,’ and the whole set sprang to their feet and huzzaed ’til the very roof above us seemed to tremble with the din. The poor parson hesitated, stopped, and looked in bewilderment at his excellency—who could only keep himself from laughing, so inexpressibly ludicrous was the whole scene, by hanging his head down and cramming his handkerchief into his mouth. As for the rest of us, there was no resisting it—we laid back in our chairs and laughed until the tears ran out of our eyes,—while the ladies in the gallery, the dear creatures, almost burst their boddice strings.