The pulpit drum ecclesiastic
        To beat with a fist instead of a stick.

No, they are carvers, and the big Bibles, back
upwards, are barons of beef!

All the trumpets are sounding at once, the
guests are settling into their places, and the
singers in the gallery are clearing their throats
to sing grace. At the first note, five
hundred people who have sat down prematurely
get np again simultaneously, and the effect is
curious. Their simultaneous sitting down, when
the grace has been sung, is equally curious, and
I should like them to do it again. I am not at
all eager for the turtle, you perceive. The fact
is, the extraordinary splendour of the scene, the
majestic grandeur of the Hall, the long vista
of gaily-dressed guests resembling parterres of
flowers, the glitter of the gold and silver plate,
and the star-like effect of the lamps, have so
lapped up my finer sense, that my grosser
appetite is submerged and forgotten. My wildest
fancy, stimulated by the Arabian Nights, has
never imagined anything more gorgeous, more
splendid, more fairy-like. What the Guildhall
was like on these occasions before it was restored
and beautified, I cannot say.

If I had not, with the corner of my eye,
detected a young man fishing out from the tureen
all the pieces of green fat for his own plate, it is
probable that my trance would have lasted until
the turtle had been removed. But seeing this,
I spake, and demanded turtle. I had it—twice.
Not polite to ask for soup twice; but can't help
it; besides, rather enjoy spiting that greedy
young man. Don't believe any one who tells
you that you don't get hot things at the Lord
Mayor's banquet. The turtle was hot, the
pea-hen was hot, the guinea-fowl was hot, the
potatoes were hot—and floury. I had so many
hot and nice things that I quite forgot to ask for
a slice of the baron of beef. I could not have
had a daintier, better served, dinner if I had
specially ordered it for four, of Gunter. As to
drinkables, I had cold punch with the turtle,
and champagne with the pea-hen, and Madeira
with the guinea-fowl, and hock with the
partridge-pie, and port with the cheese, and sherry
with the Nesselrode pudding, and claret with the
filberts, and I might have had beer, had I been
disposed towards that beverage, which I wasn't.

Towards the close of the feast, when the Lord
Mayor and the gentlemen at the head of the
table were beginning to look thoughtfully
towards the cloth, and nervously pick threads from
it, as if they expected to find ideas in the warp
and words in the woof, I am favoured by one of
the Lord Mayor's sons (to whom I take this
opportunity of tendering my warmest thanks for
many hearty attentions) with an admission to
the gallery. From this elevated position, at the
end of the Hall, seated upon Magog's toes, I am
enabled to view the building and the assembled
company from a coigne of vantage which has no
excelsior except the crown of Magog's head.
Here, too, I listen to the speeches as well as I can,
but the only speakers I am able to hear are the
Lord Mayor and the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
whose every word, even at this distance, is
distinctly audible. I wonder if anybody ever before
sat upon Magog's left foot and made a dessert-
table of his pedestal! There is a very secure
and convenient place for a bottle of champagne
behind the tip of his wooden sword—nobody can
see it from the front—and the hollow of his foot
affords an ample place of concealment for a dish
of almonds and raisins. I saw something behind
Magog—but there, I mustn't betray his secret;
it would be shabby, considering the intimacy he
admitted me to.

Here I sat, with a friend, listening to the
murmur of inaudible speakers and the ringing
notes of very audible singers (notably
Mademoiselle Leibhart: though why she should think
the Cuckoo suitable to the occasion I can't
imagine), until the figures in the kaleidoscope
begin to drop out, and the blaze of shifting
colours grows thinner and fainter; and as the
scene gradually fades out before us, my friend
and I grow philosophical, and moralise about life
and the vanities of the world—not forgetting
that there is some champagne left in the bottle
—finally coming to the conclusion, by a process
of reasoning which I am unable now to trace,
that it is a fine thing to have plenty of money,
and be able to have real turtle and guinea-fowl
for dinner, and ride home in our own chariot
instead of the hack cab to which our Alnaschar's
vision is now melting.

HALF A MILLION OF MONEY.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "BARBARA'S HISTORY."

CHAPTER LXXXII. ON GUAKD.

Saxon was fixed in his determination not to
have recourse to the law. In vain the banker
entreated permission to call in the aid of Mr.
Nicodemus Kidd; in vain represented the
urgency of the case, the magnitude of the stakes,
and the difficulty—it might almost be said, the
impossibility—of doing anything really effectual
in their own unassisted persons. To all this,
Saxon only replied that there were but three
surviving Trefaldens, and, happen what might, he
would not disgrace that old Cornish name by
dragging his cousin before a public tribunal.
This was his stand-point, and nothing could move
him from it.

A little after midnight the banker left him,
and, repairing straight to Pentonville, roused
the virtuous Keckwitch from his first sleep, and
sat with him in strict council for more than an
hour and a half. By three o'clock, he was back
again in Saxon's chambers; and by five, ere the
first grey of the misty September morning was
visible overhead, the two young men had alighted
from a cab at the top of Slade's-lane, and were
briskly patrolling the deserted pavement.

Dawn came, and then day. The shabby
suburban sparrows woke up in their nesting-places,