e thoughts which occupied him,
whatever those thoughts might be, and tried various places of amusement
with but indifferent success. He struggled up the highest stairs of
the Panorama; but when he had arrived, panting at the height of the
eminence, Care had come up with him, and was bearing him company. He
went to the Club, and wrote a long letter home, exceedingly witty and
sarcastic, and in which, if he did not say a single word about Vauxhall
and Fanny Bolton, it was because he thought that subject, however
interesting to himself, would not be very interesting to his mother and
Laura. Nor could the novels or the library table fix his attention, nor
the grave and respectable Jawkins (the only man in town), who wished to
engage him in conversation; nor any of the amusements which he tried,
after flying from Jawkins. He passed a Comic Theatre on his way home,
and saw 'Stunning Farce,' 'Roars of Laughter,' 'Good Old English Fun and
Frolic,' placarded in vermilion letters on the gate. He went into the
pit, and saw the lovely Mrs. Leary, as usual, in a man's attire; and
that eminent buffo actor, Tom Horseman, dressed as a woman. Horseman's
travesty seemed to him a horrid and hideous degradation; Mrs. Leary's
glances and ankles had not the least effect. He laughed again, and
bitterly, to himself, as he thought of the effect which she had
produced upon him, on the first night of his arrival in London, a short
time--what a long long time ago!

CHAPTER L. Or near the Temple Garden

Fashion has long deserted the green and pretty Temple Garden, which in
Shakespeare makes York and Lancaster to pluck the innocent white and red
roses which became the badges of their bloody wars; and the learned and
pleasant writer of the Handbook of London tells us that "the commonest
and hardiest kind of rose has long ceased to put forth a bud" in that
smoky air. Not many of the present occupiers of the buildings round
about the quarter know or care, very likely, whether or not roses
grow there, or pass the old gate, except on their way to chambers. The
attorneys' clerks don't carry flowers in their bags, or posies under
their arms, as they run to the counsel's chambers--the few lawyers who
take constitutional walks think very little about York and Lancaster,
especially since the railroad business is over. Only antiquarians and
literary amateurs care to look at the gardens with much interest, and
fancy good Sir Roger de Coverley and Mr. S