They carried the suggestion by acclamation. Just then,
whang!--bang!--whiz! somebody thundered at the door, when, alarmed,
they all cried out--'whose there?' In answer to this the man with the
long rod cried out at the very top of his voice--'Stop the game!' The
old fellows began to stow away their gambling tools, look innocently
and vacantly at one another, as if a crisis was upon them they could
not understand. 'It's only us outsiders,' a voice replied, in most
harmless accents.
"'There! I told you we'd make a mess of it,--that the outsiders would
break in upon us' said Littlejohn, with a savage grimace, directing
himself to Dablerdeen, who it was now thought better to call
Grandmamma Fudge. The gentlemen outsiders were the honor-saving
committee from Finsbury, the members of which declared themselves
large stakeholders in the game at the Treasury. Grandmamma Fudge
thought it best to tell them, merely in a bluff sort of way, that
England's honor was safe in his keeping--that they must not be scared
about it; not however, until they found him pedling pills and other
quack medicines with the object of inducing Austria to be more
explicit.
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