'" "It aint the
like o' either of you that will be arter bamboozling my cousin, Mrs.
Judy O'Rafferty, into a blind bargain," said Barney O'Finn; in whose
noddle the whiskey began to fumigate with the most valorous effect.
"You're a noble-spirited fellow, Barney," said Horace Eglantine, who was
using his best exertions to produce a _row_. "At them again, Barney, and
tell them their conduct is most indecent." Thus stimulated and prompted,
Barney was not tardy in re-echoing the charge; which, as might have been
expected, produced an instantaneous explosion and general battle. In
two minutes the company were thrown into the most appalling scene of
confusion--chairs and tables upset, bludgeons, pewter pots, pipes,
glasses, and other missiles flying about in all directions, until broken
heads and shins were as plentiful as black eyes, and there was no lack
of either--women screaming and children crying, making distress more
horrible. In this state of affairs, Bob Transit had climbed up and
perched himself upon a beam to make observations; while the original
fomenter of the strife, that mad wag Eglantine, had with myself made our
escape through an aperture into the next house, and having secured
our persons from violence were enabled to become calm observers of the
affray, by peeping through the breach by which we had entered.
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