It was nearly eight o’clock ere the Royal Adelaide touched the point of the far-famed Margate Jetty, a fact that was announced as well by the usual bump, and scuttle to the side to get out first, as by the band striking up God save the King, and the mate demanding the tickets of the passengers.  The sun had just dropped beneath the horizon, and the gas-lights of the town had been considerately lighted to show him to bed, for the day was yet in the full vigour of life and light.

Two or three other cargoes of cockneys having arrived before, the whole place was in commotion, and the beach swarmed with spectators as anxious to watch this last disembarkation as they had been to see the first.  By a salutary regulation of the sages who watch over the interests of the town, “all manner of persons,” are prohibited from walking upon the jetty during this ceremony, but the platform of which it is composed being very low, those who stand on the beach outside the rails, are just about on a right level to shoot their impudence cleverly into the ears of the new-comers who are paraded along two lines of gaping, quizzing, laughing, joking, jeering citizens, who fire volleys of wit and satire upon them as they pass.  “There’s leetle Jemmy Green again!” exclaimed a nursery-maid with two fat, ruddy children in her arms, “he’s a beauty without paint!” “Hallo, Jorrocks, my hearty! lend us your hand,” cried a brother member of the Surrey Hunt.  Then there was a pointing of fingers and cries of “That’s Jorrocks! that’s Green!” “That’s Green! that’s Jorrocks!” and a murmuring titter, and exclamations of “There’s Simpkins! how pretty he is!” “But there’s Wiggins, who’s much nicer.”  “My eye, what a cauliflower hat Mrs. Thompson’s got!” “What a buck young Snooks is!” “What gummy legs that girl in green has!” “Miss Trotter’s bustle’s on crooked!” from the young ladies at Miss Trimmer’s seminary who were drawn up to show the numerical strength of the academy, and act the part of walking advertisements.  These observations were speedily drowned by the lusty lungs of a flyman bellowing out, as Green passed, “Hallo! my young brockley-sprout, are you here again?—­now then for the tizzy you owe me,—­I have been waiting here for it ever since last Monday morning.”  This salute produced an irate look and a shake of his cane from Green, with a mutter of something about “imperance,” and a wish that he had his big fighting foreman there to thrash him.  When they got to the gate at the end, the tide of fashion became obstructed by the kissings of husbands and wives, the greetings of fathers and sons, the officiousness of porters, the cries of flymen, the importunities of innkeepers, the cards of bathing-women, the salutations of donkey drivers, the programmes of librarians, and the rush and push of the inquisitive; and the waters of “comers” and “stayers” mingled in one common flood of indescribable confusion.