ou great haw-buck!" from a
buy-a-hearth-stone boy, whose stock-in-trade Jorrocks nearly demolished,
as he crossed the corner of Catherine Street before him, again roused
his vigilance. "The deuce be in the fog," said he, "I declare I can't
see across the Strand. It's as dark as a wolf's mouth.--Now where are
you going to with that meazly-looking cab of yours?--you've nearly run
your shafts into my 'oss's ribs!" cried he to a cabman who nearly upset
him. The Strand was kept alive by a few slip-shod housemaids, on their
marrow-bones, washing the doorsteps, or ogling the neighbouring pot-boy
on his morning errand for the pewters. Now and then a crazy jarvey
passed slowly by, while a hurrying mail, with a drowsy driver and
sleeping guard, rattled by to deliver their cargo at the post office.
Here and there appeared one of those beings, who like the owl hide
themselves by day, and are visible only in the dusk. Many of
them appeared to belong to the other world. Poor, puny, ragged,
sickly-looking creatures, that seemed as though they had been suckled
and reared with gin. "How different," thought the Yorkshireman to
himself, "to the fine, stout, active labourer one meets at an early hour
on a hunting morning in the country!" His reverie was interrupted on
arriving opposite the _Morning Chronicle_ office, by the most discordant
yells that ever issued from human beings, and on examining the quarter
from whence they proceeded, a group of fifty or a hundred boys, or
rather little old men, were seen with newspapers in their hands and
under their arms, in all the activity of speculation and exchange. "A
clean _Post_ for Tuesday's _Times_!" bellowed one. "I want the _Hurl_!
(Herald) for the _Satirist_!" shouted another. "Bell's _Life_ for the
_Bull_! _The Spectator_ for the _Sunday Times_!"

The approach of our sportsmen was the signal for a change of the chorus,
and immediately Jorrocks was assailed with "A hunter! a hunter! crikey,
a hunter! My eyes! there's a gamecock for you! Vot a beauty! Vere do you
turn out to-day? Vere's the stag? Don't tumble off, old boy! 'Ave you
got ever a rope in your pocket? Take Bell's _Life in London_, vot
contains all the sporting news of the country! Vot a vip the gemman's
got! Vot a precious basternadering he could give us--my eyes, vot a
swell!--vot a shocking bad hat!_[8]--vot shocking bad breeches!"

[Footnote 8: "Vot a shocking bad hat!"--a slang cockney phrase of 1831.]

The fog, which becam