When the storm subsided the ladies had vanished, and the alderman moved
an adjournment to what he termed the _snuggery_, a pleasant little
room on the first floor, which commanded a delightful prospect over the
adjacent country. Here we were joined by three eccentric friends of the
Marigold family, who came on the special invitation of the alderman,
Mr. Peter Pendragon, a celebrated city punster, Mr. Philotus Wantley,
a vegetable dieter, and Mr. Galen Cornaro, an abominator of wine, and a
dyspeptic follower of Kitchener and Abernethy--a trio of singularities
that would afford excellent materials for my friend Richard Peake, the
dramatist, in mixing up a new _monopolylogue_ for that facetious child
of whim and wit, the inimitable Charles Mathews. Our first story, while
the wine was decantering, proceeded from the ~101~~alderman, who having
been driven from the dinner table somewhat abruptly by the amiable _caro
sposa_ of the fish-merchant, had failed in giving us his promised
anecdote of old Tattersall and his beef-eater. "I have dined with him
often in this house," said the alderman, "in my earlier days, and a
pleasant, jovial, kindhearted fellow he was, one who would ride a long
race to be present at a good joke, and never so happy as when he could
trot a landlord, or knock down an argument monger with his own weapons.
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