tched both by Mr. Disraeli and Mr. Thackeray. In
"Vanity Fair" we find it described as the temporary abode of the
impecunious Colonel Crawley, and Moss describes his uncomfortable past
and present guests in a manner worthy of Fielding himself. There is the
"Honourable Capting Famish, of the Fiftieth Dragoons, whose 'mar' had
just taken him out after a fortnight, jest to punish him, who punished
the champagne, and had a party every night of regular tip-top swells
down from the clubs at the West End; and Capting Ragg and the
Honourable Deuceace, who lived, when at home, in the Temple. There's a
doctor of divinity upstairs, and five gents in the coffee-room who know
a good glass of wine when they see it. There is a tably d'hote at
half-past five in the front parlour, and cards and music afterwards."
Moss's house of durance the great novelist describes as splendid with
dirty huge old gilt cornices, dingy yellow satin hangings, while the
barred-up windows contrasted with "vast and oddly-gilt picture-frames
surrounding pieces sporting and sacred, all of which works were by the
greatest masters, and fetched the greatest prices, too, in the bill
transactions, in the course of which they were sold and bought over and
over again. A quick-eyed Jew boy locks and unlocks the door for
visitors, and a dark-eyed maid in curling-papers brings in the tea."

[Illustration: EXECUTION OF TOMKINS AND CHALLONER (_see page 95_).]

The Law Institute, that Grecian temple that has wedged itself into the
south-west end of Chancery Lane, was built in the stormy year of 1830.
On the Lord Mayor's day that year there was a riot; the Reform Bill was
still pending, and it was feared might not pass, for the Lords were
foaming at the mouth. The Iron Duke was detested as an opposer of all
change, good or bad; the new police were distasteful to the people;
above all, there was no Lord Mayor's show, and no man in brass armour to
look at. The rioters assembled outside No. 62, Fleet Street, were there
harangued by some dirty-faced demagogue, and then marched westward. At
Temple Bar the zealous new "Peelers" slammed the old muddy gates, to
stop the threatening mob; but the City Marshal, red in the face at this
breach of City privilege, re-opened them, and the mob roared approval
from a thousand distorted mouths. The more pugnacious reformers now
broke the scaffolding at the Law Institute into dangerous cudgels, and
some 300 of the unwashed patriots dashed throu