"to save charges of
housekeeping." The reign of James I. is characterised by all the
wantonness of prodigality among one class, and all the penuriousness and
rapacity in another, which met in the dissolute indolence of a peace of
twenty years. But a more striking feature in these "Ordinaries" showed
itself as soon as "the voyder had cleared the table." Then began "the
shuffling and cutting on one side, and the bones rattling on the other."
The "Ordinarie," in fact, was a gambling-house, like those now
expressively termed "Hells," and I doubt if the present "Infernos"
exceed the whole _diablerie_ of our ancestors.

In the former scene of sharping they derived their cant terms from a
rabbit-warren, but in the present their allusions partly relate to an
aviary, and truly the proverb suited them, "of birds of a feather."
Those who first propose to sit down to play are called the _leaders_;
the ruined gamesters are the _forlorn-hope_; the great winner is the
_eagle_; a stander-by, who encourages, by little ventures himself, the
freshly-imported gallant, who is called the _gull_, is the
_wood-pecker_; and a monstrous bird of prey, who is always hovering
round the table, is the _gull-groper_, who, at a pinch, is the
benevolent Audley of the Ordinary.

There was, besides, one other character of an original cast, apparently
the friend of none of the party, and yet in fact, "the Atlas which
supported the Ordinarie on his shoulders:" he was sometimes
significantly called the _impostor_.

The _gull_ is a young man whose father, a citizen or a squire, just
dead, leaves him "ten or twelve thousand pounds in ready money, besides
some hundreds a-year." Scouts are sent out, and lie in ambush for him;
they discover what "apothecarie's shop he resorts to every morning, or
in what tobacco-shop in Fleet-street he takes a pipe of smoke in the
afternoon;" the usual resorts of the loungers of that day. Some sharp
wit of the Ordinarie, a pleasant fellow, whom Robert Greene calls the
"taker-up," one of universal conversation, lures the heir of seven
hundred a-year to "The Ordinarie." A _gull_ sets the whole aviary in
spirits; and Decker well describes the flutter of joy and expectation:
"The _leaders_ maintained themselves brave; the _forlorn-hope_, that
drooped before, doth now gallantly come on; the _eagle_ feathers his
nest; the _wood-pecker_ picks up the crumbs; the _gull-groper_ grows fat
with good feeding; and the _gull_ himself, at who