inquiries as to the best mode of getting home. The coaches were all
gone, steamboats there were none, save for every place but London, and
posting, he said, was "cruelly expensive." In the midst of his dilemma,
"Boots," who is always the most intelligent man about an inn, popped in
his curly head, and informed Mr. Jorrocks that the Unity hoy, a most
commodious vessel, neat, trim, and water-tight, manned by his own
maternal uncle, was going to cut away to London at three o'clock, and
would land him before he could say "Jack Robinson." Mr. Jorrocks jumped
at the offer, and forthwith attiring himself in a pair of Mr. Creed's
loose inexpressibles, over which he drew his Hessian boots, he tucked
the hamper containing the knuckle of veal and other etceteras under one
arm, and the bunch of sea-weed he had been busy collecting, instead of
watching his clothes, under the other, and, followed by his friends,
made direct for the vessel.

Everybody knows, or ought to know, what a hoy is--it is a large
sailing-boat, sometimes with one deck, sometimes with none; and the
Unity, trading in bulky goods, was of the latter description, though
there was a sort of dog-hole at the stern, which the master dignified
by the name of a "state cabin," into which he purposed putting Mr.
Jorrocks, if the weather should turn cold before they arrived. The wind,
however, he said, was so favourable, and his cargo--"timber and fruit,"
as he described it, that is to say, broomsticks and potatoes--so light,
that he warranted landing him at Blackwall at least by ten o'clock,
where he could either sleep, or get a short stage or an omnibus on to
Leadenhall Street. The vessel looked anything but tempting, neither was
the captain's appearance prepossessing, still Mr. Jorrocks, all things
considered, thought he would chance it; and depositing his hamper and
sea-weed, and giving special instructions about having his pantaloons
cried in the morning--recounting that besides the silver, and