d which had once again excited only those
feelings of envy, bitterness, and despair, which I have been describing,
and which, on every such occasion, he experienced with, if possible,
increased intensity.

What to do with himself till it should be time to return to his
cheerless lodgings he did not exactly know; so he loitered along at a
snail's pace. He stood for some time staring at the passengers, their
luggage, and the coaches they were ascending and alighting from, and
listening to the strange medley of coachmens', guards', and porters'
vociferations, and passengers' greetings and leave-takings--always to be
observed at the White Horse Cellar. Then he passed along, till a street
row, near the Haymarket, attracted his attention and interested his
feelings; for it ended in a regular set-to between two watermen attached
to the adjoining coach-stand. Here he conceived himself looking on with
the easy air of a swell; and the ordinary penalty (paying for his
footing) was attempted to be exacted from him; but he had nothing to be
picked out of any of his pockets except that under his very nose, and
which contained his white handkerchief! This over, he struck into
Leicester Square, where, (he was in luck that night,) hurrying up to
another crowd at the farther end, he found a man preaching with infinite
energy. Mr. Titmouse looked on, and listened for two or three minutes
with apparent interest; and then, with a countenance in which pity
struggled with contempt, muttered, loud enough to be heard by all near
him, "poor devil!" and walked off. He had not proceeded many steps,
before it occurred to him that a friend--one Robert Huckaback, much such
another one as himself--lived in one of the narrow, dingy streets in the
neighborhood. He determined to take the chances of his being at home,
and if so, of spending the remainder of the evening with him.
Huckaback's quarters were in the same ambitious proximity to heaven as
his own; the only difference being, that they were a trifle cheaper and
larger. He answered the door himself, having only the moment before
returned from _his_ Sunday's excursion,--_i. e._ the Jack Straw's Castle
Tea-Gardens, at Highgate, where, in company with several of his friends,
he had "spent a jolly afternoon." He ordered in a glass of negus from
the adjoining public-house, after some discussion, which ended in an
agreement that he should stand treat that night, and Titmouse on the
ensuing Sunday night.