“Permits” to embark having been considerately granted “gratis” by the Government for a franc apiece, at the hour of ten our travellers stepped on board, and Mr. Jorrocks, having wrapped himself up in his martial cloak, laid down in the cabin and, like Ulysses in Ithaca, as Nimrod would say, “arrived in London Asleep.”

XI.  A RIDE TO BRIGHTON ON “THE AGE”

(In a very “Familiar Letter” to Nimrod)

DEAR NIMROD,

You have favoured myself, and the sporting world at large, with a werry rich high-flavoured account of the great Captain Barclay, and his extonishing coach, the “Defiance”; and being werry grateful to you for that and all other favours, past, present, and to come, I take up my grey goose quill to make it “obedient to my will,” as Mr. Pope, the poet, says, in relating a werry gratifying ride I had on the celebrated “Brighton Age,” along with Sir Wincent Cotton, Bart., and a few other swells.  Being, as you knows, of rather an emigrating disposition, and objecting to make a nick-stick of my life by marking down each Christmas Day over roast-beef and plum pudding, cheek-by-jowl with Mrs. J——­ at home, I said unto my lad Binjimin—­and there’s not a bigger rogue unhung—­“Binjimin, be after looking out my Sunday clothes, and run down to the Regent Circus, and book me the box-seat of the ‘Age,’ for I’m blow’d if I’m not going to see the King at Brighton (or ‘London-sur-Mary,’ as James Green calls it), and tell the pig-eyed book-keeper it’s for Mr. Jorrocks, and you’ll be sure to get it.”

Accordingly, next day, I put in my appearance at the Circus, dressed in my best blue Saxony coat, with metal buttons, yellow waistcoat, tights, and best Hessians, with a fine new castor on my head, and a carnation in my button-hole.  Lots of chaps came dropping in to go, and every one wanted the box-seat.  “Can I have the box-seat?” said one.—­“No, sir; Mr. Jorrocks has it.”  “Is the box-seat engaged?” asked another.—­“Yes, sir; Mr. Jorrocks has taken it.”  “Book me the box,” said a third with great dignity.—­“It’s engaged already.”  “Who by?”—­“Mr. Jorrocks”; and so they went on to the tune of near a dozen.  Presently a rattling of pole chains was heard, and a cry was raised of “Here’s Sir Wincent!” I looks out, and saw a werry neat, dark, chocolate-coloured coach, with narrow red-striped wheels, and a crest, either a heagle or a unicorn (I forgets which), on the door, and just the proprietors’ names below the winder, and “The Age,” in large gilt letters, below the gammon board, drawn by four blood-like, switch-tailed nags, in beautiful highly polished harness with brass furniture, without bearing reins—­driven by a swellish-looking young chap, in a long-backed, rough, claret-coloured benjamin, with fancy-coloured tyes, and a bunch of flowers in his button-hole—­no coachman or man of fashion, as you knows, being complete without the flower.  There was nothing gammonacious about