a letter in my pocket from one
of them, asking me to send him a dog."

"Well, then, politics," said I.

"Politics! Why, the gemmen in the House would leave Pitt himself, if he
were alive, to come to my pit. There were three of the best of them here
to-night, all great horators. Get on with you, what comes next?"

"Why, there's learning and letters."

"Pretty things, truly, to keep people from dog-fighting! Why, there's
the young gentlemen from the Abbey School comes here in shoals, leaving
books, and letters, and masters too. To tell you the truth, I rather
wish they would mind their letters, for a more precious set of young
blackguards I never seed. It was only the other day I was thinking of
calling in a constable for my own protection, for I thought my pit would
have been torn down by them."

Scarcely knowing what to say, I made an observation at random.

"You show by your own conduct," said I, "that there are other things
worth following besides dog-fighting. You practise rat-catching and
badger-baiting as well."

The dog-fancier eyed me with supreme contempt.

"Your friend here," said he, "might well call you a new one. When I
talks of dog-fighting, I of course means rat-catching and badger-baiting,
ay, and bull-baiting too, just as when I speaks religiously, when I says
one I means not one but three. And talking of religion puts me in mind
that I have something else to do besides chaffing here, having a batch of
dogs to send off by this night's packet to the Pope of Rome."

But at last I had seen enough of what London had to show, whether strange
or common-place, so at least I thought, and I ceased to accompany my
friend in his rambles about town, and to partake of his adventures. Our
friendship, however, still continued unabated, though I saw, in
consequence, less of him. I reflected that time was passing on, that the
little money I had brought to town was fast consuming, and that I had
nothing to depend upon but my own exertions for a fresh supply; and I
returned with redoubled application to my pursuits.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

I compiled the _Chronicles of Newgate_; I reviewed books for the Review
established on an entirely new principle; and I occasionally tried my
best to translate into German portions of the publisher's philosophy. In
this last task I experienced more than one difficulty. I was a tolerable
German scholar, it is true, and I had long been able to translate from
German