Now, it chanced that in the first-floor of the house in which we dwelt, there also resided one Stubbs and his wife.  They had neither chick nor child.  Stubbs was a tailor by trade, and being a first-rate workman, earned weekly a considerable sum; but, like too many of his fraternity, he was seldom sober from Saturday night until Wednesday morning.  His loving spouse ’rowed in the same boat’—­and the ‘little green-bottle’ was dispatched several times during the days of their Saturnalia, to be replenished at the never-failing fountain of the ‘Shepherd and Flock.’

Unhappily, in one of her maudlin fits, Mrs. Stubbs took a particular fancy to my mother; and one day, in the absence of the ‘ninth,’ beckoned my unsuspecting parent into her sittingroom,—­and after gratuitously imparting to her the hum-drum history of her domestic squabbles, invited her to take a ‘drop o’ summat’—­to keep up her I sperrits.’

Alas! this was the first step—­and she went on, and on, and on, until that which at first she loathed became no longer disagreeable, and by degrees grew into a craving that was irresistible;—­and, at last, she regularly hob-and-nobb’d’ with the disconsolate rib of Stubbs, and shared alike in all her troubles and her liquor.

Fain would I draw a veil over this frailty of my unfortunate parent; but, being conscious that veracity is the very soul and essence of history, I feel myself imperatively called upon neither to disguise nor to cancel the truth.

My father remonstrated in vain-the passion had already taken too deep a hold; and one day he was suddenly summoned from his work with the startling information, that ’Mother Mullins’—­(so the kind neighbour phrased it) was sitting on the step of a public house, in the suburbs, completely ‘tosticated.’

He rushed out, and found the tale too true.  A bricklayer in the neighbourhood proposed the loan of his barrow, for the poor senseless creature could not walk a step.  Placing her in the one-wheel-carriage, he made the best of his way home, amid the jeers of the multitude.  Moorfields was then only partially covered with houses; and as he passed a deep hollow, on the side of which was placed a notice, intimating that

“Rubbish may be shot here!”

his eyes caught the words, and in the bitterness of his heart he exclaimed—­

“I wou’dn’t like to shoot her exactly; but I’ve a blessed mind to turn her out!”

CHAPTER IV.—­A Situation.

“I say, Jim, what birds are we most like now?” “Why swallows, to be sure,”

In the vicinity of our alley were numerous horse-rides, and my chief delight was being entrusted with a horse, and galloping up and down the straw-littered avenue.—­I was about twelve years of age, and what was termed a sharp lad, and I soon became a great favourite with the ostlers, who admired the aptness with which I acquired the language of the stables.