the night that this was a market-morning in
Covent Garden. I have seen wagons,
surmounted by enormous mountains of vegetable-
baskets, wending their way through the silent
streets. I have been met by the early
costermongers in their donkey-carts, and chaffed by
the costerboys on my forlorn appearance.
But I have reserved Covent Garden as a
bonne bouche—a wind-up to my pilgrimage ;
for I have heard and read how fertile is the
market in question in subjects of amusement
and contemplation.

I confess that I am disappointed. Covent
Garden seems to me to be but one great
accumulation of cabbages. I am pelted with
these vegetables as they are thrown from the
lofty summits of piled wagons to
costermongers standing at the base. I stumble
among them as I walk ; in short, above,
below, on either side, cabbages preponderate.

I dare say, had I patience, that I should see
a great deal more; but I am dazed with
cabbages, and jostled to and fro, and "danged"
dreadfully by rude market-gardeners—so I
eschew the market, and creep round the
piazza.

I meet my vagrant friend of the Park here,
who is having a cheap and nutritious breakfast
at a coffee stall. The stall itself is a
nondescript species of edifice—something between
a gipsy's tent and a watchman's box; while, to
carry out the comparison, as it were, the lady
who serves out the coffee very much resembles
a gipsy in person, and is clad in a decided
watchman's coat. The aromatic beverage (if
I may be allowed to give that name to the
compound of burnt beans, roasted horse-liver,
and refuse chicory, of which the " coffee " is
composed), is poured, boiling hot, from a very
cabalistic-looking cauldron into a whole
regiment of cups and saucers standing near;
while, for more solid refection, the cups are
flanked by plates bearing massive piles of
thick bread and butter, and an equivocal
substance, called " cake." Besides my friend the
vagrant, two coster-lads are partaking of the
hospitalities of the café; and a huge gardener,
straddling over a pile of potato sacks, hard
by, has provided himself with bread and
butter and coffee, from the same establishment,
and is consuming them with such
avidity that the tears start from his eyes at
every gulp.

I have, meanwhile, remembered the
existence of a certain fourpenny-piece in my pocket,
and have been twice or thrice tempted to
expend it. Yet, on reflection, I deem it better to
purchase with it a regular breakfast, and to
repair to a legitimate coffee-shop. The day
is by this time getting rapidly on, and
something of the roar of London begins to be
heard in earnest. The dull murmur of wheels
has never ceased, indeed, the whole night
through; but now, laden cabs come tearing
past on their way to the railway station.
The night policemen gradually disappear, and
sleepy potboys gradually appear, yawning at
the doors of public houses—sleepy waitresses
at the doors of coffee-houses and reading-
rooms. There have been both public-houses
and coffee-shops open, however, the whole
night. The " Mohawks' Arms " in the market
never closes. Young Lord Stultus, with
Captain Asinus of the Heavies, endeavoured
to turn on all the taps there at four o'clock
this morning, but at the earnest desire of
Frume, the landlord, desisted ; and
subsequently subsided into a chivalrous offer of
standing glasses of " Old Tom " all round,
which was as chivalrously accepted. As the
" all round " comprised some thirty ladies and
gentlemen, Frume made a very good thing of
it ; and, like a prudent tradesman as he is,
he still further acted on the golden
opportunity, by giving all those members of the
company (about three-fourths) who were
drunk, glasses of water instead of gin ; which
operation contributed to discourage intemperance,
and improve his own exchequer in a
very signal and efficacious manner. As with
the " Mohawks' Arms," so with the " Turnip's
Head," the great market-gardeners' house,
and the " Pipe and Horse Collar," frequented
by the night cabmen—to say nothing of that
remarkably snug little house near Drury
Lane, " The Blue Bludgeon," which is well
known to be the rendezvous of the famous
Tom Thug and his gang, whose recent achievements
in the strangling line, by means of a
silk handkerchief and a life-preserver, used
tourniquet fashion, have been so generally
admired of late. I peep into some of these
noted hostelries as I saunter about. They
begin to get rather quiet and demure as the
day advances, and will be till midnight,
indeed, very dull and drowsy pothouses, as
times go. They don't light up to life, and
jollity, and robbery, and violence, before the
small hours.

So with the coffee-shops. The one I enter,
to invest my fourpence in a breakfast of coffee
and bread-and-butter, has been open all night
likewise; but the sole occupants now are a
dirty waiter, in a pitiable state of drowsiness,
and half-a-dozen homeless wretches who have
earned the privilege of sitting down at the
filthy tables by the purchase of a cup of
coffee, and, with their heads on their hands,
are snatching furtive naps, cut short too
short, alas!—by the pokes and " Wake up,
there! " of the drowsy waiter. It is
apparently his " consigne " to allow no sleeping.

I sit down here, and endeavour to keep
myself awake over the columns of the " Sun"
newspaper of last Tuesday week—unsuccessfully,
however. I am so jaded and weary, so
dog-tired and utterly worn out, that I fall off
again to sleep; and whether it is that the
drowsy waiter has gone to sleep too, or that
the expenditure of fourpence secures
exemption for me, I am allowed to slumber.

I dream this time. A dreadful vision it is,
of bugs, and cabbages, and tramping soldiers,
and anon of the fire at the pickle-shop. As I