Dickens.] WHAT CHRISTMAS IS IN THE COMPANY OF JOHN DOE. 13

wrote to my surly uncle in Pudding- lane.
Now was the time to put the disinterested
friendship of Brown to the test; to avail my-
self of the repeated offers of service from
Jones; to ask for the loan of that sixpence
which Robinson had repeatedly declared was
at my command as long as he had a shilling.
I sealed the letters with an unsteady hand,
and consulted Mr. Aminadab as to their de-
spatch. That gentleman, by some feat of
legerdemain, called up from the bowels of the
earth, or from one of those mysterious loca-
lities known as " round the corner," two
sprites: one, his immediate assistant; seedier,
however, and not jewelled, who carried a
nobby stick which he continually gnawed. The
other, a horrible little man with a white head
and a white neckcloth, twisted round his neck
like a halter. His eye was red, and his teeth
were gone, and the odour of rum compassed
him about, like a cloak. To these two acolytes
my notes were confided, and they were di-
rected to bring the answers like lightning to
Blowman's. To Blowman's, in Cursitor-street,
Chancery-lane, I was bound, and a cab was
straightway called for my conveyance thereto.
For the matter of that, the distance was so
short, I might easily have walked, but I could
not divest myself of the idea that everybody
in the street knew I was a prisoner.

I was soon within the hospitable doors of
Mr. Blowman, officer to the Sheriff of Middle-
sex. His hospitable doors were double, and,
for more hospitality, heavily barred, locked,
and chained. These, with the exceptions of
barred windows, and a species of grating-
roofed yard outside, like a monster bird-cage,
were the only visible signs of captivity. Yet
there was enough stone in the hearts, and
iron in the souls, of Mr. Blowman's inmates,
to build a score of lock-up houses. For that
you may take my word.

I refused the offer of a private room, and
was conducted to the coffee-room, where Mr.
Aminadab left me, for a while, to my own re-
flections; and to wait for the answers to my
letters.

They came–––and one friend into the bargain.
Jones had gone to Hammersmith, and wouldn't
be back till next July. Brown had been dis-
appointed in the City. Robinson's money was
all locked up. Thompson expected to be locked
up himself. Jackson was brief, but explicit:
he said he " would rather not."

My friend brought me a carpet-bag, with
what clothes I wanted in it. He advised me,
moreover, to go to Whitecross Street at once,
for a sojourn at Mr. Blowman's domicile would
cost me something like a guinea per diem.
So,' summoning Mr. Aminadab, who had
obligingly waited to see if I could raise the
money or not, I announced my intention
of being conveyed to gaol at once. I paid
half-a-guinea for the accommodation I had
had at Mr. Blowman's; I made a pecuniary
acknowledgment of Mr. Aminadab s polite-
ness; and I did not fail to remember the

old man in the white halter and the
spirituous mantle. Then, when I had also
remembered a red-headed little Jew boy who
acted as Cerberus to this Hades, and appeared
to be continually washing his hands (though
they never seemed one whit the cleaner for the
operation), another cab was called, and off I
went to Whitecross Street, with a heart con-
siderably heavier than a paving-stone.

I had already been three hours in cap-
tivity, and it was getting on for eight o'clock.
The cab was proceeding along Holborn, and I
thought, involuntarily, of Mr. Samuel Hall,
black and grimy, making his progress through
the same thoroughfare, by the Oxford Road,
and so on to Tyburn, bowing to the crowd
and cursing the Ordinary. The foot-pave-
ment on either side was thronged with people
at their Christmas marketing, or, at least,
on some Christmas business–––so it seemed
to me. Goose Clubs were being held at the
public-houses–––sweeps for sucking-pigs, plum-
puddings, and bottles of gin. Some ladies and
gentlemen had begun their Christmas rather
too early, and were meandering unsteadily over
the flag-stones. Fiddlers were in great request,
being sought for in small beershops, and
borne off bodily from bars, to assist at Christ-
mas Eve merry-makings. An immense deal
of hand- shaking was going on, and I was very
much afraid, a good deal more " standing"
than was consistent with the strict rules of
temperance. Everybody kept saying that it
was " only once a year," and made that an
apology (so prone are mankind to the use of
trivial excuses!) for their sins against Father
Mathew. Loud laughter rang through the
frosty air. Pleasant jokes, innocent " chaff,"
passed; grocers' young men toiled lustily,
wiping their hot faces ever and anon;
butchers took no rest; prize beef melted away
from very richness before my eyes; and in
the midst of all the bustle and jollity, the
crowding, laughing, drinking, and shouting,
I was still on my unvarying way to White-
cross Street.

There was a man resting a child's coffin on a
railing, and chattering with a pot-boy, with
whom he shared a pot of porter, " with the
sharp edge taken off." There are heavy
hearts–––heavier perchance than yours, in
London this Christmas Eve, my friend Prup-
per, thought I. To-morrow's dawn will bring
sorrow and faint-heartedness to many thou-
sands–––to oceans of humanity, of which you
are but a single drop.

The cab had conveyed me through Smith-
field Market, and now rumbled up Barbican.
My companion, the gentleman with the
crab-stick (to whose care Mr. Aminadab had
consigned me) beguiled the time with pleasant
and instructive conversation. He told me that
he had " nabbed a many parties." That he had
captured a Doctor of Divinity going to a Christ-
mas, a bridegroom starting for the honeymoon,
a Colonel of Hussars in full fig for her Majesty's
drawing-room. That he had the honour once