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This entertainment we had the honour of witnessing from Echo's room
window; and unless the Marshal and his officers had interfered, I
know not what might have been the result. A very few words sufficed to
convince Tom of the necessity of yielding to his creditor's wishes.
A letter of licence was immediately produced and signed, and the
gay-hearted Echo left once more at liberty to wing his flight wherever
his fancy might direct. On our road home, it was no trifling amusement
to hear him relate
"The customs of the place,
The manners of its mingled populace,
The lavish waste, the riot, and excess,
Neighbour'd by famine, and the worst distress;
The decent few, that keep their own respect,
And the contagion of the place reject;
The many, who, when once the lobby's pass'd,
Away for ever all decorum cast,
And think the walls too solid and too high,
To let the world behold their infamy."
Ever on the alert for novelty, we hopped into and dined at the Coal Hole
Tavern in the Strand, certainly one of the best and cheapest ordinaries
in London, and the society not of the meanest. Rhodes himself is a
punster and a poet, sings a good song, and sells the best of wine; and
what renders mine host more estimable, is the superior manners of the
man.
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