mutton and West India pickles:
hard by Mrs. Nokes the landlady's elbow--with mutual bows--we recognise
Hickson, the sculptor, and Morgan, the intrepid Irish chieftain, chief
of the reporters of the Morning Press newspaper. We pass through a
passage into a back room, and are received with a roar of welcome from a
crowd of men, almost invisible in the smoke.

"I am right glad to see thee, boy!" cries a cheery voice (that will
never troll a chorus more). "We spake anon of thy misfortune, gentle
youth! and that thy warriors of Assaye have charged the Academy in vain.
Mayhap thou frightenedst the courtly school with barbarous visages
of grisly war.--Pendennis, thou dost wear a thirsty look! Resplendent
swell! untwine thy choker white, and I will either stand a glass of
grog, or thou shalt pay the like for me, my lad, and tell us of the
fashionable world." Thus spake the brave old Tom Sarjent,--also one
of the Press, one of the old boys: a good old scholar with a good old
library of books, who had taken his seat any time these forty years by
the chimney-fire in this old Haunt: where painters, sculptors, men of
letters, actors, used to congregate, passing pleasant hours in rough
kindly communion, and many a day seeing the sunrise lighting the rosy
street ere they parted, and Betsy put the useless lamp out and closed
the hospitable gates of the Haunt.

The time is not very long since, though to-day is so changed. As we
think of it, the kind familiar faces rise up, and we hear the pleasant
voices and singing. There are they met, the honest hearty companions.
In the days when the Haunt was a haunt, stage-coaches were not yet quite
over. Casinos were not invented: clubs were rather rare luxuries:
there were sanded floors, triangular sawdust-boxes, pipes, and tavern
parlours. Young Smith and Brown, from the Temple, did not go from
chambers to dine at the Polyanthus, or the Megatherium, off potage a la
Bisque, turbot au gratin, cotelettes a la What-do-you-call-'em, and a
pint of St. Emilion; but ordered their beefsteak and pint of port from
the "plump head-waiter at the Cock;" did not disdain the pit of
the theatre; and for a supper a homely refection at the tavern. How
delightful are the suppers in Charles Lamb to read of even now!--the
cards--the punch--the candles to be snuffed--the social oysters--the
modest cheer! Whoever snuffs a candle now? What man has a domestic
supper whose dinner-hour is eight o'clock? Those little meeti