ritish Museum, through Chancery Lane into Fleet street, by Ludgate
Hill, under the shadow of old battered Saint Paul's Church on to the
Devil's Tavern, near Blackfriars Bridge, where we found gay and comfortable
lodgings for the night, it being twelve o'clock when we shook hands with
Meg Mullen, the rubicund landlady.

The Devil's Tavern was a resort for actors, authors, bohemians, lords and
ladies, who did not retire early to their downy couches.

The night we arrived the tavern was crowded, as the Actors' Annual Ball was
in progress, and many fair women and brave men belated by Bacchus could not
find their way home, and were compelled to remain all night and be cared
for by the host of the Devil.

I told "Meg" we were Stratford boys, come up to London to seek our fortune,
and set the Thames afire with our genius.

Plucking the "rosy" dame aside, I informed her that William Shakspere was a
poet, author, actor and philosopher; and, while he was posing over the
counter, smiling at a blooming barmaid, he looked the picture of his own
immortal Romeo. Meg told me in a quizzical tone that the town was full of
poets and actors, and that the surrounding playhouses could hire them for
ten shillings a week, with sack and bread and cheese thrown in every
Saturday night.

After a hasty supper, I tossed Meg a golden guinea to pay score, as if it
were a shilling, to convince her that we were of the upper crust of
bohemians, not strollers from the Strand, or penny puppets from Eastcheap
or Smithfield.

After passing back the change, Meg sent a gay and festive porter to light
us to the top cock-loft of the tavern, five stairs up, among the windows
and angled gables of the tile roof.

A tallow dip and coach candle lit up the room, which was large, containing
two Roman couches with quilts, robes and blankets, a stout table, two oak
chairs, a pewter basin, and a large stone jug filled with water.

The tavern seemed to be on the banks of the Thames, for we could see
through the two large windows, flitting lights as if boats and ships were
moving on the water, while across the bridge old Southwark could be seen in
the midnight glare as if it were a field of Jack-o'-lanterns moving in
mystic parade.

William and myself soon found rest in deep slumber, and wafted away into a
dreamless realm, our tired bodies lay in the enfolding arms of Morpheus
until the porter knocked at our door the next morning as the clock of the
tower struck