sleeping guard, rattled by to deliver their cargo at the post office.  Here and there appeared one of those beings, who like the owl hide themselves by day, and are visible only in the dusk.  Many of them appeared to belong to the other world.  Poor, puny, ragged, sickly-looking creatures, that seemed as though they had been suckled and reared with gin.  “How different,” thought the Yorkshireman to himself, “to the fine, stout, active labourer one meets at an early hour on a hunting morning in the country!” His reverie was interrupted on arriving opposite the Morning Chronicle office, by the most discordant yells that ever issued from human beings, and on examining the quarter from whence they proceeded, a group of fifty or a hundred boys, or rather little old men, were seen with newspapers in their hands and under their arms, in all the activity of speculation and exchange.  “A clean Post for Tuesday’s Times!” bellowed one.  “I want the Hurl!  (Herald) for the Satirist!” shouted another.  “Bell’s Life for the Bull! The Spectator for the Sunday Times!”

The approach of our sportsmen was the signal for a change of the chorus, and immediately Jorrocks was assailed with “A hunter! a hunter! crikey, a hunter!  My eyes! there’s a gamecock for you!  Vot a beauty!  Vere do you turn out to-day?  Vere’s the stag?  Don’t tumble off, old boy!  ’Ave you got ever a rope in your pocket?  Take Bell’s Life in London, vot contains all the sporting news of the country!  Vot a vip the gemman’s got!  Vot a precious basternadering he could give us—­my eyes, vot a swell!—­vot a shocking bad hat!_[8]—­vot shocking bad breeches!”

[Footnote 8:  “Vot a shocking bad hat!”—­a slang cockney phrase of 1831.]

The fog, which became denser at every step, by the time they reached St. Clement’s Danes rendered their further progress almost impossible.—­“Oh, dear! oh, dear! how unlucky,” exclaimed Jorrocks, “I would have given twenty pounds of best Twankay for a fine day—­and see what a thing we’ve got!  Hold my ’oss,” said he to the Yorkshireman, “while I run into the ‘Angel,’ and borrow an argand burner, or we shall be endorsed[9] to a dead certainty.”  Off he got, and ran to the inn.  Presently he emerged from the yard—­followed by horse-keepers, coach-washers, porters, cads, waiters and others, amid loud cries of “Flare up, flare up, old cock! talliho fox-hunter!”—­with a bright mail-coach footboard lamp, strapped to his middle, which, lighting up the whole of his broad back now cased in scarlet, gave him the appearance of a gigantic red-and-gold insurance office badge, or an elderly cherub without wings.

[Footnote 9:  City—­for having a pole run into one’s rear.]