TAP-ROOM POLITICS. 171 



Returning to our inn, we found in the parlor a couple of lisping 

 clerks, who were sipping wine in a genteel way, and trying to say 

 smart things while they ogled the landlady's daughter. Retreat- 

 ing from their twaddle, I called for a pipe and mug of ale, and 

 joined the circle in the tap-room. There was a tall, scarlet- 

 coated fellow, who told me he was a sergeant of the Guards, re- 

 cruiting here ; an older man, who had been in India ; a half-tipsy 

 miller, with a pleasant-speaking, good-natured wife trying to coax 

 him to come home ; and half a dozen more rustics, all muddling 

 themselves with beer and tobacco. 



The conversation was running on politics, and was not at all 

 interrupted by my entrance ; on the contrary, I thought the old 

 Indian was glad of a stranger to show himself off before. He 

 was the orator of the night, and the others did little but express 

 assent to his sentiments, except the miller, who every few mo- 

 ments interrupted him with a plain and emphatic contradiction. 

 The sergeant said very little either way except he was appealed 

 to, to substantiate some assertion " as a military man," but leaned 

 on the bar, drinking hot gin-and-water, and whispering with the 

 bar-maid. 



There was news that the French minister had taken diplomatic 

 offense and demanded his passports, and war was threatened. 

 War there certainly would be, according to the ex-soldier, and a 

 terrible time was coming with it. England was going to be 

 whipped-out it was inevitable. Every body assented " it was 

 inevitable" except the miller, who said it was fol-de-rol. "Why," 

 continued the Indian, " isn't every country in Europe against 

 England ? don't they all hate her ? and isn't every Frenchman 

 a soldier?" Then he described the inefficient state of the 

 national defenses, and showed how easy it would be for a fleet 

 of steamers, some dark night the next week, to land an army 

 somewhere on the coast of Wales, and before they heard of it, it 



