
certain constitutional Judge, who had laid down from the Bench the noble
principle, that it was lawful for any white mob to murder any black man: and
that another piece of plate, of similar value, should be presented to a certain
Patriot, who had declared from his high place in the Legislature, that he and
his friends would hang, without trial, any Abolitionist who might pay them a
visit. For the surplus, it was agreed that it should be devoted to aiding the
enforcement of those free and equal laws, which render it incalculably more
criminal and dangerous to teach a negro to read and write than to roast him
alive in a public city. These points adjusted, the meeting broke up in great
disorder, and there was an end of the Watertoast Sympathy.
    As Martin ascended to his bedroom, his eye was attracted by the Republican
banner, which had been hoisted from the house-top in honour of the occasion, and
was fluttering before a window which he passed.
    »Tut!« said Martin. »You're a gay flag in the distance. But let a man be
near enough to get the light upon the other side and see through you; and you
are but sorry fustian!«
 

                                  Chapter XXII

    From which It Will Be Seen that Martin Became a Lion on His Own Account.
                         Together with the Reason why.

As soon as it was generally known in the National Hotel, that the young
Englishman, Mr. Chuzzlewit, had purchased a lo-cation in the Valley of Eden, and
intended to betake himself to that earthly Paradise by the next steamboat, he
became a popular character. Why this should be, or how it had come to pass,
Martin no more knew than Mrs. Gamp, of Kingsgate Street, High Holborn, did; but
that he was for the time being, the lion, by popular election, of the Watertoast
community, and that his society was in rather inconvenient request, there could
be no kind of doubt.
    The first notification he received of this change in his position, was the
following epistle, written in a thin running hand, - with here and there a fat
letter or two, to make the general effect more striking, - on a sheet of paper,
ruled with blue lines.
 
                                                »National Hotel, Monday Morning.
        Dear Sir,
            When I had the privillidge of being your fellow-traveller in the
        cars, the day before yesterday, you offered some remarks upon the
        subject of the Tower of London, which (in common with my fellow-citizens
        generally) I could wish to hear repeated to
