[Illustration: 339]
The sad, the sober, and the sentimental were all gone to roost, before
our merry trio sallied forth from the Castle Tavern, ripe for any sport
or spree. Of all the bucks in this buckish age, your London buck is the
only true fellow of spirit; with him life never begins too early, or
finishes too late; how many of the west-end _roues_ ride twenty miles
out, in a cold morning, to meet the hounds, and after a hard day's run
mount their hack and ride twenty miles home to have the pleasure of
enjoying their own fire-side, or of relating the hair-breadth perils and
escapes they have encountered, to their less active associates at
Long's or Stevens's, the Cider Cellar, or the Coal-hole! The general
introduction of gas throws too clear a light upon many dark transactions
and midnight frolics to allow the repetition of the scenes of former
times: here and there to be sure an odd nook, or a dark cranny, is yet
left unenlightened; but the leading streets of the metropolis are,
for the most part, too well illuminated to allow the _spreeish_ or
the _sprightly_ to carry on their jokes in security, or bolt away with
safety when a charley thinks proper to set his _child a crying_.{3} We
had crossed the road, in the direction of Chancery-lane, expecting to
have met with a hackney _rattler_, but not one was to be found upon the
stand, when Bob espied the broad _tilt_ of a _jarvey perched_ upon his
_shop-board_, and impelling along, with no little labour of the whip, a
pair of _anatomies_, whose external appearance showed they
3 Springing his rattle.
Pages:
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448