takes place there.On a late auspicious
occasion when the nation was hourly
expecting to be transported with joy for the
ninth time, it is surprising what he knew on
the question of Chloroform. Now, Doctor
Locock is known to be the most trustworthy
even of doctors; and Her Majesty's self-
reliance and quiet force of character have
passed into an axiom. I want to know,
therefore, How, When, Where, and From
Whom, did the Best Authority acquire all
that chloroform information which he was,
for months, prowling about all the clubs,
going up and down all the streets, having all
London to dine with him, and going out to
dine with all London, for the express purpose
of diffusing? I hope society does not demand
that I should be slowly bothered to death
by any man, without demanding this much
satisfaction. How did he come by his
intelligence, I ask ? The Best Authority must
have had an authority. Let it be produced.

I have mentioned the pocket-books in
which he deciphers secret entries; many of
them written, probably, in invisible ink, for
they are non-existent even to the owner's
eyes. How does he come by all the
ambassadors' letter-bags, and by all the note-books
of all the judges? Who gave him all the
little scraps of paper that the late Mr.
Palmer wrote and handed about in the course
of his protracted trial? He tells all sorts of
people what was in them all; he must have
seen them, surely. Who made out for him
the accounts of this journal? Who calculated
for him the sum total of profit? And
when will it be quite convenient to him to
name an early day for handing over to the
Conductor the very large balance, with
several ciphers at the end of it, which clearly
must be owing the said Conductor, as he has
never laid hands on it yet?

How did he get into the Russian lines?
He was always there; just as he was always
in the English camp, and always coming
home to put MR. RUSSELL right, and going
back again. It was he who found out that
the Commissariat wouldn't give THE TIMES
rations of pork, and that the porkless TIMES
would never afterwards leave the Commissariat
alone. Had he known much of the
Russian leaders before the war, that he began
to talk of them so familiarly by their surnames
as soon as the first gun was fired? Will
any of us ever forget while memory holds her
seat in these distracted globes, our aching
heads, what we suffered from this man in
connection with the Redan ? Can the most
Christian of us ever forgive the lies he told
us about the Malakhoff? I might myself
overlook even those injuries, but for his
having put so many people up to making
plans of that detested fortress, on tablecloths,
with salt-spoons, forks, dessert-dishes,
nut-crackers, and wine-glasses. Which frightful
persecution, a thousand times inflicted on me,
upon his authority— the best—I hereby swear
never to condone! Never shall the Sapping
and Mining knowledge, stamped in characters
of lead upon this burning brow, remain with
me but as a dreadful injury stimulating me to
devote the residue of my life to vengeance on
the Best Authority. If I could have his blood,
I would! I avow it, in fell remembrance of
the baying hounds of Boredom with which he
hunted me in the days of the Russian war.

Will he, on this public challenge, stand
forward foot to foot against me, his mortal
enemy, and declare how he can justify his
behaviour? Why am I, a free-born Briton,
who never, never will—or rather who never,
never would, if I could help it—why am I to
truckle to this tyrant all the days of my life?
Why is the Best Authority, Gesler-like, to
set his hat upon a pole in the épergne of
every dinner table, in the hall of every club-
house, in the stones of every street, and,
violating the Charter proclaimed by the Guardian
Angels who sang that strain, to demand me
for his slave? What does he mean by his
unreasonable requirement that I shall make
over my five senses to him? Who is he that
he is to absorb my entity into his non-entity?
And are not these his appetites? I put it to
Flounceby.

Flounceby is rather an obstinate character
(Mrs. Flounceby says the most obstinate of
men; but, that may be her impulsive way of
expressing herself), and will argue with you
on any point, for any length of time you
like or don't like. He is certain to beat
you, too, by a neat method he has of
representing you to have said something which
you never did say, or so much as think of,
and then indignantly contradicting it. No
further back than within this month,
Flounceby was holding forth at a great rate
on the most argumentative question of all
questions— which every question is with him,
and therefore I simply mean any question—
and had made out his case entirely to his
own satisfaction, and was pounding his
dinner-company of six with it, as if they
were plastic metal, and he and the question
were the steam-hammer; when an unknown
man of faint and fashionable aspect
(one of the six) slided out from under the
hammer without any apparent effort, and
flatly denied Flounceby's positions, one and
all, "on the best authority." If he had
contested them on any ground of faith,
reason, probability, or analogy, Flounceby
would have pinned him like a bull-dog; but,
the mere mention of the Best Authority (it
was a genteel question in its bearings)
instantly laid Flounceby on his back. He turned
pale, trembled, and gave in. It happened,
however, as it always does at Flounceby's,
that the next most argumentative question
of questions came on immediately afterwards.
Upon that point I, deriving courage from
the faint and fashionable man, who by the
way from the moment of his victory, retired,                                                                                                                  like lago, and word spake never more—