Oxford.
_The Three per Cent. Consols._--In Jerdan's _Autobiography_, vol. iii.,
published in 1852, we read this anecdote:
"At a City dinner, so political that the three Consuls of France
were drunk, the toast-master, quite unacquainted with Bonaparte,
Cambacères, and Lebrun, hallooed out from behind the chair,
'Gentlemen, fill bumpers! The chairman gives the Three per Cent.
Consols!'"
In _Merrie England in the Olden Time_, vol. ii. p. 70. (published ten
years before), will be found the following note:
"This eminent professor (toast-master Toole), whose sobriquet is
'Lungs,' having to shout the health of the 'three present
Consuls,' at my Lord Mayor's feast, proclaimed the health of the
'Three per Cent. Consols!'"
The _latter_ version is the _correct_ one. It was the three foreign
Consuls who were present among this annual gathering of grandees that
was given; not Bonaparte, Cambacères, and Lebrun. The after-dinner organ
of Toole might easily, on hearing the toast, mistake "present" for "per
cent.," and "Consuls" (in the City, too) for "Consols."