Mr.Pilgrim had just returned from one of his long day's rounds among the farm-houses, in the course of which he had sat down to two hearty meals that might have been mistaken for dinners if he had not declared them to be 'snaps'; and as each snap had been followed by a few glasses of 'mixture'; containing a less liberal proportion of water than the articles he himself labelled with that broadly generic name, he was in that condition which his groom indicated with poetic ambiguity by saying that 'master had been in the sunshine'.
Under these circumstances, after a hard day, in which he had really had no regular meal, it seemed a natural relaxation to step into the bar of the Red Lion, where, as it was Saturday evening, he should be sure to find Dempster, and hear the latest news about the protest against the evening lecture.
'Have you hooked Ben Landor yet ?' he continued, as he took two chairs, one for his body, and the other for his right leg.
'No,' said Mr.Budd, the churchwarden, shaking his head; 'Ben Landor has a way of keeping himself neutral in everything, and he doesn't like to oppose his father.

Old Landor is a regular Tryanite.

But we haven't got your name yet, Pilgrim.' 'Tut tut, Budd,' said Mr.Dempster, sarcastically, 'you don't expect Pilgrim to sign?
He's got a dozen Tryanite livers under his treatment.
Nothing like cant and methodism for producing a superfluity of bile.' 'O, I thought, as Pratt had declared himself a Tryanite, we should be sure to get Pilgrim on our side.' Mr.Pilgrim was not a man to sit quiet under a sarcasm, nature having endowed him with a considerable share of self-defensive wit.

In his most sober moments he had an impediment in his speech, and as copious gin-and-water stimulated not the speech but the impediment, he had time to make his retort sufficiently bitter.
'Why, to tell you the truth, Budd,' he spluttered, 'there's a report all over the town that Deb Traunter swears you shall take her with you as one of the delegates, and they say there's to be a fine crowd at your door the morning you start, to see the row.

Knowing your tenderness for that member of the fair sex, I thought you might find it impossible to deny her.