boxes;
Mr. St. John promised his influence. Say, therefore, my Hebe, that
the thing is certain, and let me kiss thee: thou hast dew on thy
lip already. Mr. Thumpen, you are a fine fellow, and deserve to be
encouraged; I will see that the next time your head is broken it shall
be broken fairly: but I will not patronize the bear; consider that
peremptory. What, Mr. Bookworm, again! I hope you have succeeded better
this time: the old songs had an autumn fit upon them, and had lost
the best part of their _leaves_; and Plato had mortgaged one half his
'Republic,' to pay, I suppose, the exorbitant sum you thought proper to
set upon the other. As for Diogenes Laertius, and his philosophers--"

"Pish!" interrupted Tarleton; "are you going, by your theoretical
treatises on philosophy, to make me learn the practical part of it, and
prate upon learning while I am supporting myself with patience?"

"Pardon me! Mr. Bookworm; you will deposit your load, and visit me
to-morrow at an earlier hour. And now, Tarleton, I am at your service."

CHAPTER II.

GAY SCENES AND CONVERSATIONS.--THE NEW EXCHANGE AND THE
PUPPET-SHOW.--THE ACTOR, THE SEXTON, AND THE BEAUTY.

"WELL, Tarleton," said I, looking round that mart of millinery and
love-making, which, so celebrated in the reign of Charles II., still
preserved the shadow of its old renown in that of Anne,--"well, here
we are upon the classical ground so often commemorated in the comedies
which our chaste grandmothers thronged to see. Here we can make
appointments, while we profess to buy gloves, and should our mistress
tarry too long, beguile our impatience by a flirtation with her
milliner. Is there not a breathing air of gayety about the place?--does
it not still smack of the Ethereges and Sedleys?"

"Right," said Tarleton, leaning over a counter and amorously eying the
pretty coquette to whom it belonged; while, with the coxcombry then in
fashion, he sprinkled the long curls that touched his shoulders with
a fragrant shower from a bottle of jessamine water upon the
counter,--"right; saw you ever such an eye? Have you snuff of the
true scent, my beauty--foh! this is for the nostril of a Welsh
parson--choleric and hot, my beauty,--pulverized horse-radish,--why, it
would make a nose of the coldest constitution imaginable sneeze like a
washed school-boy on a Saturday night.--Ah, this is better, my princess:
there is some courtesy in this snuff; it flatters the brain like a
poet's de