248 A FLOWER CHRISTENING. 



amounting to somewhere about seven and forty 

 shillings, including Greenhorn's refreshment, before 

 he waited upon the company up stairs. ' Oh,' 

 exclaims Tom Tulip, ' our chairman there, Mr. 

 Samuel Greenhorn, will stand godfather to his own 

 seedlings, and discharge the bill with pleasure ; but 

 we have not yet got half through the ceremony : it 

 will never do to send the rest home into the country 

 without their names; what say you, Mr. Green- 

 horn?' 



' I will just step out and settle with mine host for 

 what we have had in/ replied Sam, ' and I will 

 return presently.' Sam, it is true, felt elevated with 

 liquor ; but this unthought-of call upon his slender 

 and ill-provided purse, which happened luckily to 

 contain, within two or three shillings, the sum de- 

 manded, brought him to sober recollection. The 

 landlord took what he had, and Sam, it being then 

 near ten o'clock, decamped in silence, leaving his 

 Emperor, Queen, Rose of Roses, old Linnaeus, and 

 his wife Meg, behind him. The deep, arch rogues, 

 his companions, these modern Cantelupes, hearing 



