th his brain
feeling as if on fire, and a heart wrung with grief, he rode back, as
soon as horses could be procured, to carry the sad tidings which he
had obtained to Laura's father.

CHAPTER XX.
A spirit--though rather of a better kind than that which drags too
many of our unfortunate countrymen into the abodes of wickedness and
corruption, now called Gin Pal--es, so liberally provided for them in
the metropolis--abodes licensed and patronised by the government for
the temptation of the lower orders of the populace to commit and
harden themselves in the great besetting vice of this country--a
spirit, I say, of a better kind than this, drags me into a house of
public entertainment, called the Nag's Head, in St. James's Street.
The Nag's Head, in St. James's Street!!!
Now, though nobody would be in the least surprised to have read or
heard of the Nag's Head in the Borough, yet there is probably not a
single reader who will see this collocation of the "Nag's Head" with
"St. James's Street" without an exclamation, or at least a feeling of
surprise, at it being possible there should ever have been such a
thing in St. James's Street at all--that is to say, not a nag's head,
either horsically or hobbyhorsically speaking, but tavernistically;
for be it known to all men, that the Nag's Head here mentioned was an
inn or tavern actually in the very middle of the royal and
fashionable street called St. James's. One might write a whole
chapter upon the variations and mutations of the names of inns, and
inquire curiously whether their modification in various places and at
various times depends merely upon fashion, or whether it is produced
by some really existing but latent sympathy between peculiar names,
as applied to inns, and particular circumstances, affecting
localities, times, seasons, and national character.
Having already touched upon this subject, however, though with but a
slight and allusive sentence or two, in reference to our friend the
Green Dragon, and being at this moment pressed for time and room, we
shall say no more upon the subject here, but enter at once into the
Nag's Head, and lead the reader by the hand to the door of a certain
large apartment, which, at about half-past nine o'clock, on the night
we have just been speaking of, was well nigh as full as it could
hold.
The people whom it contained were of various descriptions, but most
of them were gentlemanly men enough in their appearance, and these
were ranged round little tables in par