water, and thick bread and
scrapings, fading into nothing before the pleasant recollection of the
green field the boys used to play in, and the green pond he was caned for
presuming to fall into, and other schoolboy associations.

Cabs, with trunks and band-boxes between the drivers' legs and outside
the apron, rattle briskly up and down the streets on their way to the
coach-offices or steam-packet wharfs; and the cab-drivers and
hackney-coachmen who are on the stand polish up the ornamental part of
their dingy vehicles--the former wondering how people can prefer 'them
wild beast cariwans of homnibuses, to a riglar cab with a fast trotter,'
and the latter admiring how people can trust their necks into one of
'them crazy cabs, when they can have a 'spectable 'ackney cotche with a
pair of 'orses as von't run away with no vun;' a consolation
unquestionably founded on fact, seeing that a hackney-coach horse never
was known to run at all, 'except,' as the smart cabman in front of the
rank observes, 'except one, and _he_ run back'ards.'

The shops are now completely opened, and apprentices and shopmen are
busily engaged in cleaning and decking the windows for the day. The
bakers' shops in town are filled with servants and children waiting for
the drawing of the first batch of rolls--an operation which was performed
a full hour ago in the suburbs: for the early clerk population of Somers
and Camden towns, Islington, and Pentonville, are fast pouring into the
city, or directing their steps towards Chancery-lane and the Inns of
Court. Middle-aged men, whose salaries have by no means increased in the
same proportion as their families, plod steadily along, apparently with
no object in view but the counting-house; knowing by sight almost
everybody they meet or overtake, for they have seen them every morning
(Sunday excepted) during the last twenty years, but speaking to no one.
If they do happen to overtake a personal acquaintance, they just exchange
a hurried salutation, and keep walking on either by his side, or in front
of him, as his rate of walking may chance to be. As to stopping to shake
hands, or to take the friend's arm, they seem to think that as it is not
included in their salary, they have no right to do it. Small office lads
in large hats, who are made men before they are boys, hurry along in
pairs, with their first coat carefully brushed, and the white trousers of
last Sunday plentifully besmeared with dust and in