empty the little gold and silver it contained
into one of Mr. Mandate's palms, who dropped
the chinking pieces into one of the pockets of
the rusty great-coat. She will walk wearily
this evening as far as the neighbourhood of:
Brick Lane, Spitalfields, to a large public-
house frequented by a "school" or gang of
Tom's friends. Here she will see what is to
be done to help Tom, being in trouble—what
in the way of a friendly raffle—what through
the medium of a harmonic meeting; for Tom
is of high repute in his profession, and his
co-professionals would do much to save him
from being banished.

Do you mark that inconceivably dirty
yet well-dressed; slatternly yet bejewelled
cloudy shirted yet cambric clad individual
in whose motley appearance the shabby-
genteel captain and the full blown gent, the
aristocrat and the "raff" appear to struggle,
and fiercely too, for the mastery. He has an
unquestionable Lincoln and Bennett hat—
yesterday no doubt the pride of that eminent
firm—but to-day battered, crushed, broken-
brimmed, and the nap coagulated with dried
mustard and salad mixture. His shirt, a few
hours ago plaited, stitched, embroidered, gold-
button-wristbanded and diamond-studded, is
now rumpled, torn, disordered, wine-stained.
His superfine Saxony black dress coat, with
silk sleeve and skirt linings, four pounds fifteen
shillings (vide Mr. Crellin's little bill), is a
dreadful garment; bedaubed with mud,
ripped up in one sleeve, torn in one pocket,
divested of half its buttons; and with its
silk skirt-linings flapping in the March wind
that blows through Pybuss's back-door. His
white neckcloth, the tie, colour, and stiffness
of which Beau Brummel would not have
disdained when first donned, is now an
unseemly rag, twisting like some hideous
serpent round his unshaven neck: one of
his shirt collars staggers limply up against
his pallid cheek, the other droops over the
discoloured neckcloth, as though it were quite
dead beat and gone in liquor. His patent
leather boots are mere cracked spoonfuls of
mud. His hands, inlaid at the fingers and
knuckles with mud-mosaics, yet sparkle with
rings; a watchless gold chain dangles from
the pocket of his embroidered waistcoat; and,
saddest sight of any, a white camellia, yesternight
a snowy, waxy, beauteous trophy of
Covent Garden floriculture, droops mournfully
from his button-hole; its head downcast
in a miserably hang-dog fashion, and its
wired stem protruding from the frayed button-
hole, like a rusty sword from a rotten
scabbard. His face is half deadly pale, and
half hecticly flushed. His chin looks as if a
too plentiful crop of wild oats had been
sown there, mingled with the tares of
intemperance. His lips are cracked and brown;
his eyes swollen, fishy and blear; his hair
dishevelled, his ears flaming red. Every
muscle seems relaxed and flaccid, and yet
twitches spasmodically.

This is all that is left of Algernon de
Beauvoir, fourth cousin of Lord Hackney and
Kingsland; yesternight, as late as half-past
twelve, the sprucest, best dressed, gayest,
most charming clerk in Her Majesty's Treasury
at the evening party of Mrs. Perfectream
(wife of Demy Perfectream, Esq. of the
Creamlaid Paper Office, Somerset House), in
Gower Street, Bedford Square. Why, at and
after supper, did he drink so much of that
champagne, so good in itself, but so bad
(in excess) for him? Why afterwards did he,
instead of walking quietly home with his
galoshes and a cigar to his lodgings in
Duke Street, St. James's, join Sam Bull
and Jack Bear, the sucking stock-brokers;
and, going down wicked streets, drink
vitriolic acid at half a guinea a bottle, falsely
called brandy; disturb the silence of the
night; sing songs where no songs should
be sung; and, finally, after a fierce altercation
and personal collision, in which publicans,
cabmen, and policemen passed and repassed
with the rapidity of the figures in a magic
lantern, find himself on a very cold wet dirty
stone floor, faced by an iron-bound door, in
the centre of which was a wicket, which wicket
opening became furnished with a municipal
face with a lettered collar, which face (by
word of mouth) informed him that he was in
a cell in Low Street police station on a charge
of being drunk and disorderly; and, on his
application for the acceptation of bail, furthermore
apprised him that he could on no
account be liberated until he was sober;
to which state of mental composure the
muniipal face could not be brought to believe
(notwithstanding his ardent protestations),
that he had arrived.

If a dungeon could be said to flame, the
squalid cell, with an unclean bench running
round it, was a dirty furnace; a simoom of
horrible odours careering through it, or
condensing in pestiferous drips upon its
whitewashed walls, half lighted by the lurid glare
of gas jet outside, and half by the grey light of
morning that stole in coldly, feebly, timidly,
as if ashamed, to illuminate this den. Algernon's
agony was intensified, on discovering
through the darkness visible, the propinquity
of a drunken cripple bent, in his deformed,
and vinous stupor, into a rhomboid of rags;
an ill-looking navvy with two black eyes,
one broken head, one bleeding nose, and
one gashed mouth, who varied short dozes,
half on the floor, half on the bench, by
sudden rushes to the iron-bound door, at
which he kicked with his heavy boots with
elephantine strength, or by
discordant bellowings through the wicket, half
devoted to condolence with one "Bill,"
supposed to be confined in an adjacent cell,
half to virulent abuse of the policemen on
duty; "All owing," as X 42, Reserve,
nentioned to his Serjeant, as he closed the
cell door upon the new prisoner, "to something
to drink."