not discontinue his
salary on the abolition of the establishment, and partition it out in
pensions to those disbanded Clerks by whose indefatigable exertions
the business of the public has been satisfactorily conducted? These
allowances, however inadequate to the purpose of substantiating all
the comforts, might yet realise the necessaries of life, and, at least,
would avert the dread of absolute destitution."

A pause ensued--Dashall continued in silent rumination--a few moments
brought our Heroes to the Horse Guards; and as the acquirement "devoutly
to be wished" was a general knowledge of metropolitan manners, they
proceeded to the observance of Real Life in a Suttling House.

Child's Suttling House at the Horse Guards is the almost exclusive
resort of military men, who, availing themselves of the intervals
between duty, drop in to enjoy a pipe and pint.

"To fight their battles o'er again,
Thrice to conquer all their foes,
And thrice to slay the slain."

In the entrance on the left is a small apartment, bearing the dignified
inscription, in legible characters on the door, of "The Non-Commissioned
Officers' Room." In front of the bar is a larger space, boxed off,
and appropriated to the use of the more humble heroical aspirants, the
private men; and passing through the bar, looking into Whitehall, is
the _Sanctum Sanctorum_, for the reception of the more exalted rank, the
golden-laced, three-striped, subordinate commandants, Serjeant-Majors
and Serjeants, with the colour-clothed regimental appendants of
Paymasters and Adjutants' Clerks, _et cetera_. Into this latter
apartment our accomplished friends were ushered with becoming

1 "Swells then thy feeling heart, and streams thine eye
O'er the deserted being, poor and old,

Whom cold reluctant parish-charity
Consigns to mingle with his kindred mold."
--Charlotte Smith.

~334~~ respect to their superior appearance, at the moment when a warm
debate was carrying on as to the respective merits of the deceased
Napoleon and the hero of Waterloo.

The advocate of the former seemed unconnected with the army: the
adherent to the latter appeared in the gaudy array of a Colour-Serjeant
of the Foot Guards, and was decorated with a Waterloo medal,
conspicuously suspended by a blue ribbon to the upper button of his
jacket; and of this honourable badge the possessor seemed not less vain
than if he had been ado