The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
wish to drink, and as for the teetotallers, they could have tea, coffee or ginger beer.
Having thus made another start Payne found it very difficult to leave off, and was proceeding to relate further details of the last beano when Harlow again rose up from his heap of shavings and said he wished to call the chairman to order. (Hear, hear). What the hell was the use of all this discussion before they had even decided to have a beano at all? Was the meeting in favour of a beano or not? That was the question.
A prolonged and awkward silence followed. Everybody was very uncomfortable, looking stolidly on the ground or staring straight in front of them.
At last Easton broke the silence by suggesting that it would not be a bad plan if someone was to make a motion that a beano be held. This was greeted with a general murmur of 'hear, hear,' followed by another awkward pause, and then the chairman asked Easton if he would move a resolution to that effect. After some hesitation Easton agreed, and formally moved: 'That this meeting is in favour of a Beano.'
The Semi-Drunk said that, in order to get on with the business he would second the resolution. But meantime several arguments had broken out between the advocates of different places, and several men began to relate anecdotes of previous beanos. Nearly everyone was speaking at once, and it was some time before the chairman was able to put the resolution. Finding it impossible to make his voice heard above the uproar, he began to hammer on the bench with a wooden mallet and to shout requests for order; but this only served to increase the din.
Whilst the chairman was trying to get the attention of the meeting in order to put the question, Bundy had become involved in an argument with several of the new hands who claimed to know of an even better place than the 'Queen Elizabeth'—a pub called 'The New Found Out,' at Mirkfield, a few miles further on than Tubberton; and another individual joined in the dispute, alleging that a house called 'The Three Loggerheads,' at Slushton-cum-Dryditch, was the finest place for a beano within a hundred miles of Mugsborough. He went there last year with Pushem and Driver's crowd, and they had roast beef, goose, jam tarts, mince pies, sardines, blancmange, calves' feet jelly, and one pint for each man was included in the cost of the dinner. In the middle of the discussion, how-
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