[A crowd of citizens has gathered outside to watch the carriages
as they drive up and deposit guests invited to the Lord Mayor's
banquet, for which event the hall is brilliantly lit within. A
cheer rises when the equipage of any popular personage arrives
at the door.

FIRST CITIZEN

Well, well! Nelson is the man who ought to have been banqueted
to-night. But he is coming to Town in a coach different from these.!

SECOND CITIZEN

Will they bring his poor splintered body home?

FIRST CITIZEN

Yes. They say he's to be tombed in marble, at St. Paul's or
Westminster. We shall see him if he lays in state. It will
make a patriotic spectacle for a fine day.

BOY

How can you see a dead man, father, after so long?

FIRST CITIZEN

They'll embalm him, my boy, as they did all the great Egyptian
admirals.

BOY

His lady will be handy for that, won't she?

FIRST CITIZEN

Don't ye ask awkward questions.

SECOND CITIZEN

Here's another coming!

FIRST CITIZEN

That's my Lord Chancellor Eldon. Wot he'll say, and wot he'll look!
Mr. Pitt will be here soon.

BOY

I don't like Billy. He killed Uncle John's parrot.

SECOND CITIZEN

How may ye make that out, youngster?

BOY

Mr. Pitt made the war, and the war made us want sailors; and Uncle
John went for a walk down Wapping High Street to talk to the pretty
ladies one evening; and there was a press all along the river that
night--a regular hot one--and Uncle John was carried on board a
man-of-war to fight under Nelson; and nobody minded Uncle John's
parrot, and it talked itself to death. So Mr. Pitt killed Uncle
John's parrot; see it, sir?

SECOND CITIZEN

You had better have a care of this boy, friend. His brain is too
precious for the common risks of Cheapside. Not but what he might
as well have said Boney killed the parrot when he was about it.
And as for Nelson--who's now sailing shinier seas than ours, if
they've rubbed Her off his slate where he's gone to,--the French
papers say that our loss in him is greater than our gain in ships;
so that logically the victory is theirs. Gad, sir, it's almost
true!

[A hurrahing is heard from Cheapside, and the crowd in that
direction begins to hustle and show excitement.]

FIRST CITIZEN

He's coming, he's coming! Here, let me lift you up, my boy