onger knew a good salmon
by its appearance; he had also a keen respect for the man who had
ancestors and ancestral estates.

I ought not to omit to mention another celebrated bookie of that
day; he was second only to Crockford himself, and was called "The
Librarian." He was also known as "Billy Sims."

Billy lived in St. James's Street, in a house which has long since
been demolished, and thither people resorted to enjoy the idle, witty,
and often scandalous gossip of the time. It was as easy to lose your
reputation there as your money at Crockford's, and far more difficult
to keep it. The only really innocent conversation was when a man
talked about himself.

From that popular gossiping establishment I heard a little story told
by the son of Sydney Smith. His father had been sent for to see an old
lady who was one of his most troublesome parishioners. She was dying.
Sad to say, she had always been querulous and quarrelsome. It may have
been constitutional, but whatever the cause, her husband had had an
uncomfortable time with her. When Sydney Smith reached the house the
old lady was dead, and the bereaved widower, a religious man in his
way, and acquainted with Scripture, said,--

"Ah, sir, you are too late: my poor dear wife has gone to _Abraham's
bosom_."

"Poor Abraham!" exclaimed Sydney; "she'll tear his inside out."

As all these things pass through my memory, I recall another little
incident with much satisfaction, because I was retained in the case.
It was a scandalous fraud in connection with the gaming-table. An
action was brought by a cheat against a gentleman who was said to have
lost L20,000 on the cast of the dice. I was the counsel opposed to
plaintiff, who was said to have cheated by means of _loaded dice_. I
won the case, and it was generally believed that the action was the
cause of the appointment of the "Gaming Committee," at which tribunal
all the rascality of the gaming-tables was called to give evidence,
and the witnesses did so in such a manner as to shock the conscience
of the civilized world, which is never conscious of anything until
exposure takes place in a court of law or in some other legal inquiry.

Diabolical revelations were brought to light. However, as I have said,
Lord Palmerston effectually cleared Crockford's, and it almost seemed,
from the evidence of those who knew Crockford's best, that they never
played anything there but old-fashioned whist for threepenny points,
pati