s clattering, in pattens, to her
lodgings; the Harlequin has been bolted out, unable to vault through the
fan-light; and the Clown is running in his painted face, having
forgotten to wash it, for at home he left a dear wife seriously ill,
to come and be funny in sadness.

[Illustration: THE NOTORIOUS SINGER AT THE "WARREN," SINGING HIS
CELEBRATED BITS "THE DROP" AND "THE DRAIN."]

Drone's fly is homeward bound, heavily laden. The young men of the party
have dived into "The Welsh Rarebit Warren," there to spend the early
hours of the morning, listening to sentimental songs chanted amid fumes
of tobacco and spirits, to hear sorry wit, and make vapid remarks. The
great feature of the evening being a melodramatic dirge, supposed to be
sung by a condemned felon--a triumphant lamentation and delineation of
brutal character,--so eloquent and thrilling, in its monosyllabic groans
of anguish, that it is a wonder the kidneys, consumed in such numbers,
are ever digested. But, alas!--such is life--those most swayed by animal
propensities see the least warning therein:--as, the thief combines
business and pleasure at the gallow's foot; so, with the frequenters of
the "Warren"--they imbue their sentiment and supper,--only digesting the
latter. Wellesley has devoured several "rabbits," and Latimer disposed
of numberless kidneys, whilst young Brown has had to wait the usual
forty minutes for a steak; and, in the interim, had five "stouts," four
"goes," and several cigars, _i.e._, with assistance from the De Camps;
who have made free, ay, to order goblets of champagne, and, in the end,
not having change to repair the "damage" (a mean, but true, term, as
often applied), they get young Brown to pay the complicated sum added up
by the waiter, upon a mahogany ditto, in lieu of a slate, with stale
stout spilled in the corner, receipted with a wipe of the towel:--and
so, home in the "safety" cab, with large wheels and a spanking
grey,--lettered along the side "_Nil desperandum_," thinking "handsome
is as _Hansom_ does;" tumbling into bed just before the peep o' day, and
five hours after Mr. Brown had made up his Diary--writing against
December the 27th., Thursday, that he had taken Tom and the girls to a
pantomime; been agreeably surprised to find the De Camps there,
especially the sons, who did sit in front, with Jemy. and Angel.,
looking made as much for one another as he could desire:--Tom behaving
very sadly; and, were it not for his m