thirty deep of a morning
when I have held my levee, cringing up to my bedside--'

'Your bedside!' I exclaimed.

'Aye! it was the mode to receive in bed, attired in laced cambric
shirt and periwig, though afterwards it was permitted to sit up in your
chamber, but dressed _a la negligence_, in gown and slippers. The mode
is a terrible tyrant, Clarke, though its arm may not extend as far as
Havant. The idle man of the town must have some rule of life, so he
becomes a slave to the law of the fashions. No man in London was more
subject to it than myself. I was regular in my irregularities, and
orderly in my disorders. At eleven o'clock to the stroke, up came my
valet with the morning cup of hippocras, an excellent thing for the
qualms, and some slight refection, as the breast of an ortolan or wing
of a widgeon. Then came the levee, twenty, thirty, or forty of the class
I have spoken of, though now and then perhaps there might be some honest
case of want among them, some needy man-of-letters in quest of a guinea,
or pupil-less pedant with much ancient learning in his head and very
little modern coinage in his pocket. It was not only that I had some
power of mine own, but I was known to have the ear of my Lord Halifax,
Sidney Godolphin, Lawrence Hyde, and others whose will might make or mar
a man. Mark you those lights upon the left! Would it not be well to see
if there is not something to be had there?'

'Hooker hath orders to proceed to a certain farm,' I answered. 'This we
could take upon our return should we still have space. We shall be back
here before morning.'

'We must get supplies, if I have to ride back to Surrey for them,' said
he. 'Rat me, if I dare look my musqueteers in the face again unless I
bring them something to toast upon the end of their ramrods! They had
little more savoury than their own bullets to put in their mouths when
I left them. But I was speaking of old days in London. Our time was
well filled. Should a man of quality incline to sport there was ever
something to attract him. He might see sword-playing at Hockley, or
cocking at Shoe Lane, or baiting at Southwark, or shooting at Tothill
Fields. Again, he might walk in the physic gardens of St. James's, or go
down the river with the ebb tide to the cherry orchards at Rotherhithe,
or drive to Islington to drink the cream, or, above all, walk in the
Park, which is most modish for a gentleman who dresses in the fashion.
You see, Clarke, that we w