sinned in oil? CABBURN pursues me. Have
I a dark remembrance associated with any
gentlemanly garments, bespoke or ready
made? MOSES and SON are on my track.
Did I ever aim a blow at a defenceless fellow-
creature's head? That head eternally being
measured for a wig, or that worse head which
was bald before it used the balsam, and
hirsute afterwards—enforcing the benevolent
moral, "Better to be bald as a Dutch-cheese
than come to this,"—undoes me. Have I
no sore places in my mind which MECHI
touches—which NICOLL probes— which no
registered article whatever lacerates? Does
no discordant note within me thrill responsive
to mysterious watchwords, as "Revalenta
Arabica," or "Number One St. Paul's
Churchyard"? Then may I enjoy life, and be happy.

Lifting up my eyes, as I was musing to this
effect, I beheld advancing towards me (I was
then on Cornhill near to the Royal Exchange),
a solemn procession of three advertising vans,
of first-class dimensions, each drawn by a very
little horse. As the cavalcade approached, I
was at a loss to reconcile the careless deportment
of the drivers of these vehicles, with the
terrific announcements they conducted through
the city, which, being a summary of the
contents of a Sunday newspaper, were of the most
thrilling kind. Robbery, fire, murder, and the
ruin of the united kingdom—each discharged
in a line by itself, like a separate broadside of
red-hot shot—were among the least of the
warnings addressed to an unthinking people.
Yet, the Ministers of Fate who drove the
awful cars, leaned forward with their arms
upon their knees in a state of extreme lassitude,
for want of any subject of interest. The
first man, whose hair I might naturally have
expected to see standing on end, scratched his
head—one of the smoothest I ever beheld—
with profound indifference. The second
whistled. The third yawned.

Pausing to dwell upon this apathy, it
appeared to me, as the fatal cars came by me,
that I descried in the second car, through the
portal in which the charioteer was seated, a
figure stretched upon the floor. At the same
time, I thought I smelt tobacco. The latter
impression passed quickly from me; the former
remained. Curious to know whether this
prostrate figure was the one impressible man
of the whole capital who had been stricken
insensible by the terrors revealed to him, and
whose form had been placed in the car by the
charioteer, from motives of humanity, I
followed the procession. It turned into Leadenhall-
market, and halted at a public-house.
Each driver dismounted. I then distinctly
heard, proceeding from the second car, where
I had dimly seen the prostrate form, the
words:

"And a pipe!"

The driver entering the public-house with
his fellows, apparently for purposes of refreshment,
I could not refrain from mounting on
the shaft of the second vehicle, and looking in
at the portal. I then beheld, reclining on his
back upon the floor, on a kind of mattress or
divan, a little man in a shooting-coat. The
exclamation "Dear me!" which irresistibly
escaped my lips, caused him to sit upright, and
survey me, I found him to be a good-looking
little man of about fifty, with a shining face,
a tight head, a bright eye, a moist wink, a
quick speech, and a ready air. He had
something of a sporting way with him.

He looked at me, and I looked at him, until
the driver displaced me by handing in a pint
of beer, a pipe, and what I understand is called
"a screw" of tobacco—an object which has
the appearance of a curl-paper taken off the
barmaid's head, with the curl in it.

"I beg your pardon," said I, when the
removed person of the driver again admitted of
my presenting my face at the portal. "But—
excuse my curiosity, which I inherit from my
mother—do you live here?"

"That's good, too!" returned the little
man, composedly laying aside a pipe he had
smoked out, and filling the pipe just brought
to him.

"Oh, you don't live here then?" said I.

He shook his head, as he calmly lighted his
pipe by means of a German tinder-box, and
replied, "This is my carriage. When things
are flat, I take a ride sometimes, and enjoy
myself. I am the inventor of these wans."

His pipe was now alight. He drank his
beer all at once, and he smoked and he smiled
at me.

"It was a great idea!" said I.

"Not so bad," returned the little man, with
the modesty of merit.

"Might I be permitted to inscribe your
name upon the tablets of my memory?" I
asked.

"There's not much odds in the name,"
returned the little man, "—no name particular—
I am the King of the Bill-Stickers."

"Good gracious!" said I.

The monarch informed me, with a smile, that
he had never been crowned or installed with
any public ceremonies, but, that he was peaceably
acknowledged as King of the Bill-Stickers
in right of being the oldest and most respected
member of "the old school of bill-sticking."
He likewise gave me to understand that there
was a Lord Mayor of the Bill-Stickers, whose
genius was chiefly exercised within the limits
of the city. He made some allusion, also, to
an inferior potentate, called "Turkey-legs;"
but, I did not understand that this gentleman
was invested with much power. I rather
inferred that he derived his title from some
peculiarity of gait, and that it was of an
honorary character.

"My father," pursued the King of the Bill-
Stickers, "was Engineer, Beadle, and Bill-
Sticker to the parish of St. Andrew's, Holborn,
in the year one thousand seven hundred and
eighty. My father stuck bills at the time of
the riots of London."

"You must be acquainted with the whole