poor mother at Brompton with long, and by no
means authentic, accounts of the battle.

This young Todd, of Coram Street, Russell Square, was Master George's
great friend and admirer. They both had a taste for painting
theatrical characters; for hardbake and raspberry tarts; for sliding
and skating in the Regent's Park and the Serpentine, when the weather
permitted; for going to the play, whither they were often conducted, by
Mr. Osborne's orders, by Rowson, Master George's appointed
body-servant, with whom they sat in great comfort in the pit.

In the company of this gentleman they visited all the principal
theatres of the metropolis; knew the names of all the actors from Drury
Lane to Sadler's Wells; and performed, indeed, many of the plays to the
Todd family and their youthful friends, with West's famous characters,
on their pasteboard theatre. Rowson, the footman, who was of a
generous disposition, would not unfrequently, when in cash, treat his
young master to oysters after the play, and to a glass of rum-shrub for
a night-cap. We may be pretty certain that Mr. Rowson profited in his
turn by his young master's liberality and gratitude for the pleasures
to which the footman inducted him.

A famous tailor from the West End of the town--Mr. Osborne would have
none of your City or Holborn bunglers, he said, for the boy (though a
City tailor was good enough for HIM)--was summoned to ornament little
George's person, and was told to spare no expense in so doing. So, Mr.
Woolsey, of Conduit Street, gave a loose to his imagination and sent
the child home fancy trousers, fancy waistcoats, and fancy jackets
enough to furnish a school of little dandies. Georgy had little white
waistcoats for evening parties, and little cut velvet waistcoats for
dinners, and a dear little darling shawl dressing-gown, for all the
world like a little man. He dressed for dinner every day, "like a
regular West End swell," as his grandfather remarked; one of the
domestics was affected to his special service, attended him at his
toilette, answered his bell, and brought him his letters always on a
silver tray.

Georgy, after breakfast, would sit in the arm-chair in the dining-room
and read the Morning Post, just like a grown-up man. "How he DU dam
and swear," the servants would cry, delighted at his precocity. Those
who remembered the Captain his father, declared Master George was his
Pa, every inch of him. He made the house lively by his a