first on the water-butt, then on the dust-hole, and then alighting
on the flag-stones--as if he were conscious that his character
depended on his gallantry of the preceding night escaping public
observation. A partially opened bedroom-window here and there,
bespeaks the heat of the weather, and the uneasy slumbers of its
occupant; and the dim scanty flicker of the rushlight, through the
window-blind, denotes the chamber of watching or sickness. With
these few exceptions, the streets present no signs of life, nor the
houses of habitation.

An hour wears away; the spires of the churches and roofs of the
principal buildings are faintly tinged with the light of the rising
sun; and the streets, by almost imperceptible degrees, begin to
resume their bustle and animation. Market-carts roll slowly along:
the sleepy waggoner impatiently urging on his tired horses, or
vainly endeavouring to awaken the boy, who, luxuriously stretched
on the top of the fruit-baskets, forgets, in happy oblivion, his
long-cherished curiosity to behold the wonders of London.

Rough, sleepy-looking animals of strange appearance, something
between ostlers and hackney-coachmen, begin to take down the
shutters of early public-houses; and little deal tables, with the
ordinary preparations for a street breakfast, make their appearance
at the customary stations. Numbers of men and women (principally
the latter), carrying upon their heads heavy baskets of fruit, toil
down the park side of Piccadilly, on their way to Covent-garden,
and, following each other in rapid succession, form a long
straggling line from thence to the turn of the road at
Knightsbridge.