th a voice as hoarse as
the winter's blast on Snowdon. He was a fine compound of ruffianism,
shrewdness, and a sort of caustic humour. The fourth and last, was a
tall, genteel young man, a draper, or, rather had been; he was still
very smart, although much out at elbows. He had a pair of fine large,
showy, sharp-pointed whiskers; was exceedingly fond of hard words,
and, in his speech, superfine in the extreme. He had been highly
chagrined that very night, at a person expressing surprise at seeing
him at Cadger's Hall, he considering that a man might make himself
respectable wherever he might be, always provided that he conducted
himself with propriety; in short, maintaining to the very last, the
shadow of his former consequence.

[Illustration]

The clock chimed the warning to the final hour. A policeman came in,
supporting a man he had picked up in the streets in the last stage of
inebriation. Ben put out one of the lights, and gave notice that it
was time to move.

The landlord busied himself in rousing two or three slumberers by
sundry shakes and pushes with his foot,--not, reader to go to bed, but
to go out,--they being lodgers who, having run out of coin and out of
credit, were allowed for old acquaintance sake, to lie about the
kitchen while it was open, but were invariably desired to depart at
the lock-up hour.

The poor wretches got up, buttoned their clothes about them, thrust
their hands into their bosoms, and shuffled out half asleep, a
melancholy instance of the trials of the children of poverty and
crime. The lodgers moved slowly off to bed, one by one; the kitchen
was securely locked up, and the landlord then walked away, leaving
drunkenness, misery and debauchery about the door.

[Illustration]

FLASH DICTIONARY.

[Illustration]

A.

Abbess, a bawd, the mistress of a bawdyken

Abbott's Priory, the King's Bench Prison

Abram Cove, a naked or poor man, a sturdy beggar in rags

Above par, having the needful, possession of the poney, plenty of
money, 'best bliss of earth'

Abram men, fellows dressing themselves in various rags, old ribbon,
fox tails, begging in the streets, pretending to be mad, fellows who
steal pocket books only

Abram, to sham, to slum, to pretend sickness

Academy, a brothel, bagnio

Academican, a scholar at an academy, a whore at a brothel

Academy, a floating, a hulk at Woolwich for convicts

Ack ruffians, rogues who in conjunction with watermen sometim