a coal fire in an iron cresset blazed upon a
wharf; but, one knew that it too had been
black a little while ago, and would be black
again soon. Uncomfortable rushes of water
suggestive of gurgling and drowning, ghostly
rattlings of iron chains, dismal clankings of
discordant engines, formed the music that
accompanied the dip of our oars and their
rattling in the rullocks. Even the noises had
a black sound to me—as the trumpet sounded
red to the blind man.

Our dexterous boat's crew made nothing
of the tide, and pulled us gallantly up to
Waterloo Bridge. Here Pea and I disembarked,
passed under the black stone archway,
and climbed the steep stone steps. Within
a few feet of their summit, Pea presented
me to Waterloo (or an eminent toll-taker
representing that structure), muffled up to
the eyes in a thick shawl, and amply great-
coated and fur-capped.

Waterloo received us with cordiality, and
observed of the night that it was "a Searcher."
He had been originally called the Strand
Bridge, he informed us, but had received his
present name at the suggestion of the
proprietors, when Parliament had resolved to
vote three hundred thousand pound for the
erection of a monument in honor of the
victory. Parliament took the hint (said
Waterloo, with the least flavor of
misanthropy), and saved the money. Of course
the late Duke of Wellington was the first
passenger, and of course he paid his penny,
and of course a noble lord preserved it
evermore. The treadle and index at the toll-
house (a most ingenious contrivance for
rendering fraud impossible), were invented
by Mr. Lethbridge, then property-man at
Drury Lane Theatre.

Was it suicide, we wanted to know about?
said Waterloo. Ha! Well, he had seen a
good deal of that work, he did assure us. He
had prevented some. Why, one day a woman,
poorish looking, came in between the hatch,
slapped down a penny, and wanted to go on
without the change! Waterloo suspected
this, and says to his mate, "give an eye to
the gate," and bolted after her. She had got
to the third seat between the piers, and was
on the parapet just a going over, when he
caught her and gave her in charge. At the
police office next morning, she said it was
along of trouble and a bad husband.

"Likely enough," observed Waterloo to
Pea and myself, as he adjusted his chin in his
shawl. "There's a deal of trouble about,
you see—and bad husbands too!"

Another time, a young woman at twelve
o'clock in the open day, got through, darted
along; and, before Waterloo could come near
her, jumped upon the parapet, and shot
herself over sideways. Alarm given, watermen
put off, lucky escape.—Clothes buoyed her up.

"This is where it is," said Waterloo. "If
people jump off straight forards from the
middle of the parapet of the bays of the bridge,
they are seldom killed by drowning, but are
smashed, poor things; that's what they are;
they dash themselves upon the buttress of
the bridge. But, you jump off," said Waterloo
to me, putting his forefinger in a button hole
of my great coat; "you jump off from the side
of the bay, and you'll tumble, true, into the
stream under the arch. What you have got
to do, is to mind how you jump in! There
was poor Tom Steele from Dublin. Didn't
dive! Bless you, didn't dive at all! Fell
down so flat into the water, that he broke
his breast-bone, and lived two days!"

I asked Waterloo if there were a favorite
side of his bridge for this dreadful purpose?
He reflected, and thought yes, there was.
He should say the Surrey side.

Three decent looking men went through
one day, soberly and quietly, and went on
abreast for about a dozen yards: when the
middle one, he sung out, all of a sudden,
"Here goes, Jack!" and was over in a
minute.

Body found? Well. Waterloo didn't
rightly recollect about that. They were
compositors, they were.

He considered it astonishing how quick
people were! Why, there was a cab came up
one Boxing-night, with a young woman in it,
who looked, according to Waterloo's opinion
of her, a little the worse for liquor; very
handsome she was too—very handsome. She
stopped the cab at the gate, and said she'd
pay the cabman then: which she did, though
there was a little hankering about the fare,
because at first she didn't seem quite to know
where she wanted to be drove to. However
she paid the man, and the toll too, and looking
Waterloo in the face (he thought she
knew him, don't you see!) said, "I'll finish
it somehow!" Well, the cab went off, leaving
Waterloo a little doubtful in his mind, and
while it was going on at full speed the young
woman jumped out, never fell, hardly
staggered, ran along the bridge pavement a little
way passing several people, and jumped over
from the second opening. At the inquest it
was giv' in evidence that she had been
quarrelling at the Hero of Waterloo, and it
was brought in jealousy. (One of the results
of Waterloo's experience was, that there was
a deal of jealousy about.)

"Do we ever get madmen?" said Waterloo,
in answer to an inquiry of mine. "Well,
we do get madmen. Yes, we have had one
or two; escaped from 'Sylums, I suppose.
One hadn't a halfpenny; and because I
wouldn't let him through, he went back a
little way, stooped down, took a run, and
butted at the hatch like a ram. He smashed
his hat rarely, but his head didn't seem no
worse—in my opinion on account of his being
wrong in it afore. Sometimes people haven't
got a halfpenny. If they are really tired
and poor we give 'em one and let 'em through.
Other people will leave things—pocket-
handkerchiefs mostly. I have taken cravats and