an aristocracy there as elsewhere,--amongst other gents, a son
of my Lord Deuce-ace; and many of the men in the prison were as eager to
walk with him, and talked of his family as knowingly, as if they were
Bond Street bucks. Poor Tidd, especially, was one of these. Of all his
fortune he had nothing left but a dressing-case and a flowered dressing-
gown; and to these possessions he added a fine pair of moustaches, with
which the poor creature strutted about; and though cursing his ill
fortune, was, I do believe, as happy whenever his friends brought him a
guinea, as he had been during his brief career as a gentleman on town. I
have seen sauntering dandies in watering-places ogling the women,
watching eagerly for steamboats and stage-coaches as if their lives
depended upon them, and strutting all day in jackets up and down the
public walks. Well, there are such fellows in prison: quite as dandified
and foolish, only a little more shabby--dandies with dirty beards and
holes at their elbows.

I did not go near what is called the poor side of the prison--I _dared_
not, that was the fact. But our little stock of money was running low;
and my heart sickened to think what might be my dear wife's fate, and on
what sort of a couch our child might be born. But Heaven spared me that
pang,--Heaven, and my dear good friend, Gus Hoskins.

The attorneys to whom Mr. Smithers recommended me, told me that I could
get leave to live in the rules of the Fleet, could I procure sureties to
the marshal of the prison for the amount of the detainer lodged against
me; but though I looked Mr. Blatherwick hard in the face, he never
offered to give the bail for me, and I knew no housekeeper in London who
would procure it. There was, however, one whom I did not know,--and that
was old Mr. Hoskins, the leatherseller of Skinner Street, a kind fat
gentleman, who brought his fat wife to see Mrs. Titmarsh; and though the
lady gave herself rather patronising airs (her husband being free of the
Skinners' Company, and bidding fair to be Alderman, nay, Lord Mayor of
the first city in the world), she seemed heartily to sympathise with us;
and her husband stirred and bustled about until the requisite leave was
obtained, and I was allowed comparative liberty.

As for lodgings, they were soon had. My old landlady, Mrs. Stokes, sent
her Jemima to say that her first floor was at our service; and when we
had taken possession of it, and I offered at the end