her, he added insult to injury; spoke of her
before the chief justice as having become
distraught, said that she had been in " good
case " once, but that poverty had distracted
her; and then before that dignitary's face
took the poor fond weak-minded creature
aside, and persuaded her to pawn her plate
and arras, which he told her was only
"bed-hangings and fleabitten tapestry," and that any
"slight drollery " in water-works was worth
a thousand of these ancient heirlooms; while
glass was better than those parcel-gilt cups,
which had so long been the pride of the Old
Boar's Head. The master's eye was no longer
there to overlook; the master-mind that
reduced all to order was gone. Smooth the
silkman would fight shy of the house, for the
rumoured change would soon reach Lombard
Street. Tisick the deputy would shun it.
Dumb the minister, after a few sharp remonstrances,
in which Falstaff would laugh him to
scorn, would cross over the way whenever he
went past; and even Keech the butcher's wife
would steal in at the back door, for but few
of the female neighbours would care to claim
acquaintanceship with a woman who drank
canary with Mistress Tear-sheet; and was
continually having the city-watch at her door to
quell some brawl. Francis the drawer had,
no doubt, long before things came to this pass,
taken Prince Hal's advice, shown his indentures
a fair pair of heels, and left some other
to cry " Anon, anon, sir," through the deafening
clinking of pewter. The plate was melted,
the tapestry pawned; the Pomegranate-room
was the colour of a November fog, the Half-moon
parlour a dead dirty white. Arion and
his dolphin had gone— having been carried off
and sold. The green ceiling, which gave such
a cool sea-like look to the apartment, was
peeling off; the quaintly-carved mantel-piece
clogged with dust; and instead of that look
of cleanliness which gave such a charm to the
Old Boar's Head, nothing would be seen but
neglect, decay, and dirt. Falstaff, as he told
Shallow, still saw old Jane Nightwork; she
was then very old, and it could only have
been as charwoman at the tavern in Eastcheap
where he met her; for, the Windmill
in St. George's Fields went to the dogs after
old John Nightwork died. And now old
Jane went out to clean, ate broken victuals
in the scullery, and ran errands,
perhaps for Doll Tear-sheet, hunting up
Sneak the street musician when he was
wanted, or running for Fang to arrest some
customer who kicked up a disturbance, and
refused to pay his reckoning. " Oh, what a
falling off was there!"

The large chair in which Falslaff sat to
enact the part of king, when he drank a cup
of sack to make his eyes look red, before
rebuking Prince Hal, was by this time either
broken up or sold. The cushion which he
placed on his head for a crown, had long lain
under one of the benches; and many a cur had
coiled itself up, and slept on it for hours
together unheeded. Bardolph's nose now
stood boldly out in its fiery crimson from the
weather-stained and unpainted lattice; and
as for Nell, as Mistress Quickly was too
familiarly called, she would sit neglecting her
business, sipping with Doll Tear-sheet, and
telling her "that she had known Falstaff
twenty-nine years come peascod-time; and that an
honester or truer-hearted man never lived."
Jack meantime, with Nym and Pistol, were
having the run of the house, while that villainous
boy was ever plaguing Bardolph about
his nose; and the poor old man, the truest
friend Falstaff had, and who had served him
faithfully " forty years," would sit apart, and
sigh over the good old times which had departed
never to return again: sometimes
saying to his master, " you cannot live long,"
though such kindly warnings were unheeded
by the gormandising knight: while as for
Nell Quickly she sat with closed eyes, and
went drifting headlong to ruin.

Lower and lower fell the character of the
Old Boar's Head; almost every hour of the
day and night would the maudlin widow, in
hopes of quelling the riot, brawling, and
drunkenness, " forswear keeping house,rather
than be in those tirrits and frights." Falstaff
and Bardolph were "on his Majesty's service"
in the country, making all the money they
could for themselves, out of the Mouldys and
Bullcalfs, they were enlisting, and living on
the fat of the land, in Gloucestershire, with
Justice Shallow: while at home those
thorough-paced rascals, Pistol and Nym, were
quarrelling for the hand of Dame Quickly,
like wreckers over a salvage. The old tavern
had now become a common lodging-house,
"there had been a man or two killed in it," and
it had become dangerous to go into the place.
A watch was set about the dark courts
and alleys which lay around the spot, especially
such as led to the foot of the bridge,
for there were suspicious whisperings afloat,
dark hints of foul play, and dead bodies that
had been thrown into the river, to shoot the
bridge, and be drawn by the boiling eddies
deep down, never more to arise until the
sound of Doom. The gallery from which
Quickly used to hang out his tapestry on
gala-days, was now broken and dangerous, and
looked as if it would, at any hour, topple
down upon the heads of the passengers below;
the round table which stood on it. and had
formerly been the ornament of the
Dolphin-chamber, was covered with dust and the
marks of muddy ale, while one broken leg
was spliced with unsightly rope, the work of
some waterman. Low fellows, employed on
the wharves and river, porters, costardmongers,
and fishmongers, and such as plied in
the streets, now occupied it, playing at
shovel-grote, drinking, and quarrelling all day long,
and insulting every passenger in the street.
Doors were hanging half-off the hinges,
balustrades were broken, windows patched
and stopped up with paper and rags, behind