e denser at every step, by the time they reached St.
Clement's Danes rendered their further progress almost impossible.--"Oh,
dear! oh, dear! how unlucky," exclaimed Jorrocks, "I would have given
twenty pounds of best Twankay for a fine day--and see what a thing we've
got! Hold my 'oss," said he to the Yorkshireman, "while I run into the
'Angel,' and borrow an argand burner, or we shall be endorsed[9] to a
dead certainty." Off he got, and ran to the inn. Presently he emerged
from the yard--followed by horse-keepers, coach-washers, porters, cads,
waiters and others, amid loud cries of "Flare up, flare up, old cock!
talliho fox-hunter!"--with a bright mail-coach footboard lamp, strapped
to his middle, which, lighting up the whole of his broad back now cased
in scarlet, gave him the appearance of a gigantic red-and-gold insurance
office badge, or an elderly cherub without wings.

[Footnote 9: City--for having a pole run into one's rear.]

The hackney-coach-and cab-men, along whose lines they passed, could not
make him out at all. Some thought he was a mail-coach guard riding
post with the bags; but as the light was pretty strong he trotted
on regardless of observation. The fog, however, abated none of its
denseness even on the "Surrey side," and before they reached the
"Elephant and Castle," Jorrocks had run against two trucks, three
watercress women, one pies-all-ot!-all-ot! man, dispersed a whole covey
of Welsh milkmaids, and rode slap over one end of a buy 'at (hat) box!
bonnet-box! man's pole, damaging a dozen paste-boards, and finally
upsetting Balham Hill Joe's Barcelona "come crack 'em and try 'em" stall
at the door of the inn, for all whose benedictions, the Yorkshireman, as
this great fox-hunting knight-errant's "Esquire," came in.

Here the Yorkshireman would fain have persuaded Mr. Jorrocks to
desist from his quixotic undertaking, but he turned a deaf ear to his
entreaties. "We are getting fast into the country, and I hold it to
be utterly impossible for this fog to extend beyond Kennington
Common--'twill ewaporate, you'll see, as we approach the open. Indeed,
if I mistake not, I begin to sniff the morning air already, and hark!
there's a lark a-carrolling before us!" "Now, spooney! where are you
for?" bellowed a carter, breaking off in the middle of his whistle, as
Jorrocks rode slap against his leader, the concussion at once dispelling
the pleasing pastoral delusion, and nearly knocking Jorrocks off his
hors