Hoxton; none but the lower orders stops at Mother Red Cap's!" And the caravan moved on

With hats pinn'd up, and bow in hand,
All day most fiercely there they stand,
Like ghosts of Adam Bell and Clymme,
Sol sets for fear they'll shoot at him."

A stray Toxopholite may now and then be seen at the Robin Hood, stringing his bow, and dreaming of the merry days that are past. Underneath the ancient sign is the following inscription.

"Ye archers bold, and yeomen good,

Stop, and drink with Robin Hood;
If Robin Hood is not at home,
Stop, and drink with Little John."

1 Thomas Dale, Drawer at the Crown Tavern at Aldgate, kept the Turk's Head Musick-Booth in Smithfield-Rounds, over-against the Greyhound Inn, during the time of Bartholo

as fast as the wall-eyed anatomy of a Rosinante could drag it.

The rival tea-kettle poured out part of its contents in the person of a long, lean man, with all his limbs rambling; no way reduceable to compass, unless you doubled him up like a pocketrule. His wardrobe was illustrative of Jew frippery and Rag-Fair tawdry. He was tricked out in the relics of a ci-devant shirt; his coat was a patchwork quilt, his waistcoat and pantaloons were the sign of the chequers, an escutcheon quartering all the colours of the rainbow.

"In his hand

A box he bore, wherein the pungent dust
Of Dutch rapee, in gaudy state reclin'd.
Oft would he ope the lid, and oft immerge
His fingers,"

for the purpose of exciting an agreeable titillation in a very sharp nose, that blushed like a cornpoppy.

mew Fair (temp. W. 3rd), where he exhibited Scaramouch dances and drolls, and "the Merry Cuckolds of Hogsden !" It is stated in the Henslowe papers, deposited in the archives. of Dulwich College, that Ben Jonson killed Gabriel Spencer, a fellow actor, in a duel fought in Hoxton Fields.

"A glass of cold water, warm without sugar, Lady Teazle? or a strip of white satin and bitters, my Belvidera? A pint of half-and-half in the pewter, my Calista? or a tumbler of cold without, Mrs. Longbow?"

"D'ye think, Mr. Bigstick, I'm a rhinoscheros, a river-oss, or a crocodile? Order me a pot of hot coffee and buttered toast; and mind, Mr. Bigstick, let it be buttered on both sides.”

This dialogue was carried on between the long lean man and an invisible sharp-voiced personage in the tea-kettle.

"Coffee and toast for the tea-kettle," shouted the waiter.

"How many?" demanded mine host.

"Four. Lady Teaser, Belvideary, Miss Cannister, and Mrs. Longbow."

"Mort de ma vie !" ejaculated the long lean man. "For one!-In the Tumbletuzzy all these characters are combined. And, garçon, bring me a basin of tea and a-biscuit."

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The frugal refection was laid before the lean man. Cat-lap base!" he muttered, swallowing the scalding hot bohea, that was strongly impreg

nated with Sir Hugh Middleton, and champing the dry biscuit.

"Another round of toast for Lady Teaser!"

"Buttered on both sides," growled the lean man, sarcastically; and he began to number with his skinny fingers, as if counting the cost.

Uncle Timothy was the last person in the world to flout a threadbare coat, because it is threadbare, or take a man for a sharper because he happens to be sharp-witted or sharp-set. Your full-fed fool he thought quite as likely to have nefarious designs on his purse, as the hungry humorist who at once lets you into the secret of his starvation. If he be deserving as well as poor, it was gratifying to Uncle Tim that he had made honest poverty forget its privations for a season; and should he prove a shirking idler on the pavé, he had not been taken in at any vast expense. Reflections like these crossed his mind and he left the

room.

On his return, he found the lean man still counting with his fingers. Presently the waiter spread the table with a snow-white cloth; the clattering of knives and forks, plates and spoons,

roused the lean man from his reverie; he gazed wistfully at the preparations, and looked thrice famished.

There is a story of a tyrant, who, to add to the natural torments of starvation, caused a roast chicken to be suspended every day before the prison bars of his victim, until he expired. Just such a tormentor, unwittingly, was Uncle Timothy. For the garçon again appeared, bearing a dish of broiled ham and poached eggs, the sight and aroma of which seared the eye-balls and tantalised the pinched nostrils of the lean man. At the same moment, "Another round for Lady Teaser!" tolled a twopenny knell in his ears.

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My friend not arrived yet?" said Uncle Timothy.

"No, sir," replied the garçon slyly, but respectfully.

"Let him pay, then, for his want of punctuality. I wait for nobody. Will you, sir," politely addressing the lean man, "do me the favour to be my guest? Though I have ordered supper for two, I cannot command appetite for two."