am, here lives a caitiff wretch who has probably
got plenty of it under the counter. Why should I here conceal my fault?
Wine ho! I cried. The call was answered. I have no wine, said he, but
plenty of whis--. Silence! thou pernicious caitiff, quoth I; thou
invisible spirit of wine, since we can get thee by no other name, why
let us call thee gin and sugar. He brought the juice of cursed juniper
in a phial, and in the porches of my throat did pour Udolpho Wolfe's
distilment. Thus was I by a Dutchman's hand at once dispatched--not
drunk or sober--sent into the dirty streets three-quarters tight, with
all my imperfections on my head. The fellow's name? My very soul rebels.
But whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the cuffs and bruises of
this bloody Dutchman or to take arms against his red-haired highness,
and by informing end him? I go and it is done. Villain, here's at thy
heart! His name, your Honor, is Bobblesnoffkin in the Bowery. That's
Shakspeare mixed."

"Young man, whose shirt has escaped from all control, and now hangs
loose, the posterior section of which has also sustained a serious, and,
I fear, irremediable fracture, I have another question to propound;
answer upon your life. Have you got a home?"

"My home is on the deep, deep sea.--That's Plutarch's Lives."

"How do you get your living?"

"Doubt thou the stars are fire; doubt that the sun doth move; doubt
truth to be a liar, but never doubt that I'll get a living while the
oyster-sloops don't have but one watchman.--That's Billy S. again."

"Do you pay for your oysters?"

"Base is the slave that pays; the speed of thought is in my
limbs.--That's Byron."

"Do you steal them and then run away?"

"I've told thee all, I'll tell no more, though short the story be; let
me go back where I was before and I'll get my living without troubling
the corporation. That's Tom Moore, altered to suit circumstances."

"You ought to dispense with the brandy and gin."

"Oh, I could be happy with either, were 'tother dear charmer bottled up
and the cork put in.--That's Dibdin with a vengeance."

"Young man, I fear you've led our young friend, whom you now see asleep
amongst the broken crockery, from the paths of sobriety. What do you
suppose will become of you if you go on in this way?"

"Alas, poor Yorick!--Peter, I mean. Who knows where he will lay his
bones? Few and short will the prayers be said, and nobody'll feel any
sorrow: but they'll cram him into hi