up! Let it be a dashing murder that shall keep the wood-engravers
at it for the next two months. You are the boy to go through with
it, and interest the town!

The miserable wretch, inflated by this lunatic conceit, arranges his
whole plan for publication and effect. It is quite an epitome of
his experience of the domestic melodrama or penny novel. There is
the Victim Friend; the mysterious letter of the injured Female to
the Victim Friend; the romantic spot for the Death-Struggle by
night; the unexpected appearance of Thomas Hocker to the Policeman;
the parlour of the Public House, with Thomas Hocker reading the
paper to a strange gentleman; the Family Apartment, with a song by
Thomas Hocker; the Inquest Room, with Thomas Hocker boldly looking
on; the interior of the Marylebone Theatre, with Thomas Hocker taken
into custody; the Police Office with Thomas Hocker "affable" to the
spectators; the interior of Newgate, with Thomas Hocker preparing
his defence; the Court, where Thomas Hocker, with his dancing-master
airs, is put upon his trial, and complimented by the Judge; the
Prosecution, the Defence, the Verdict, the Black Cap, the Sentence--
each of them a line in any Playbill, and how bold a line in Thomas
Hocker's life!

It is worthy of remark, that the nearer he approaches to the
gallows--the great last scene to which the whole of these effects
have been working up--the more the overweening conceit of the poor
wretch shows itself; the more he feels that he is the hero of the
hour; the more audaciously and recklessly he lies, in supporting the
character. In public--at the condemned sermon--he deports himself
as becomes the man whose autographs are precious, whose portraits
are innumerable; in memory of whom, whole fences and gates have been