, Bum-Bailiffs or
Bums_."--l _Black Com_. 346.

~239~~

If die he must, die game.
Some few months o'er, again he strays
'Midst scenes of former halcyon days,
On other projects bent;
No more ambitious of a name,
Or mere unprofitable fame,
On gain he's now intent,
To deal a flush, or cog a die,
Or plan a deep confed'racy
To pluck a pigeon bare.
Elected by the Legs a brother,
His plan is to entrap some other
In Greeting's fatal snare.
Here for a time his arts succeed,
But vice like his, it is decreed,
Can never triumph long:
A noble, who had been his prey,
Convey'd the well cogg'd bones away,
Exposed them to the throng.
Now blown, "his occupation's" o'er,
Indictments, actions, on him pour,
His ill got wealth must fly;
And faster than it came, the law
Can fraud's last ill got shilling draw,
Tom's pocket soon drain'd dry.
Again at sea, a wreck, struck down,
By fickle fortune and the town,
Without the means to bolt.
His days in bed, for fear of Bums,
At night among the Legs he comes,
Who gibe him for a dolt.
He's cut, and comrades, one by one,
Avoid him as they would a dun.
Here finishes our tale--
Tom Tick, the life, the soul, the whim
Of courts and fashion when in trim,
Is left--
WAITING FOR BAIL.

~240~~

[Illustration: page240]

By the time old Mark Supple had finished his somewhat lengthy tale,
the major part of the motley group of eccentrics who surrounded us
were terribly cut: the garrulous organ of Jack Milburn was unable to
articulate a word; _Goose_ B----l, the gourmand, was crammed full, and
looked, as he lay in the arms of Morpheus, like a fat citizen on the
night of a lord mayor's dinner--a lump of inanimate mortality. In one
corner lay a poor little Grecian, papa Chrysanthus Demetriades, whom Tom
Echo had plied with bishop till he fell off his chair; Count Dennet was
safely deposited beside him; and old Will Stewart,{28} the poacher, was
just humming himself to sleep with the fag end of an old ballad as he
sat upon the ground

28 Portraits of the three last-mentioned eccentrics will be
found in page 2