always went about very shabby, and we thought him an old miser. One of
our gents, Bob Swinney by name, used to say that Tudlow's share was all
nonsense, and that Brough had it all; but Bob was always too knowing by
half, used to wear a green cutaway coat, and had his free admission to
Covent Garden Theatre. He was always talking down at the shop, as we
called it (it wasn't a shop, but as splendid an office as any in
Cornhill)--he was always talking about Vestris and Miss Tree, and singing

"The bramble, the bramble,
The jolly jolly bramble!"

one of Charles Kemble's famous songs in "Maid Marian;" a play that was
all the rage then, taken from a famous story-book by one Peacock, a clerk
in the India House; and a precious good place he has too.

When Brough heard how Master Swinney abused him, and had his admission to
the theatre, he came one day down to the office where we all were, four-
and-twenty of us, and made one of the most beautiful speeches I ever
heard in my life. He said that for slander he did not care, contumely
was the lot of every public man who had austere principles of his own,
and acted by them austerely; but what he _did_ care for was the character
of every single gentleman forming a part of the Independent West
Diddlesex Association. The welfare of thousands was in their keeping;
millions of money were daily passing through their hands; the City--the
country looked upon them for order, honesty, and good example. And if he
found amongst those whom he considered as his children--those whom he
loved as his own flesh and blood--that that order was departed from, that
that regularity was not maintained, that that good example was not kept
up (Mr. B. always spoke in this emphatic way)--if he found his children
departing from the wholesome rules of morality, religion, and decorum--if