terrific combat, which is nightly encored, and expatiate on the
inimitable manner in which Bill Thompson can 'come the double
monkey,' or go through the mysterious involutions of a sailor's
hornpipe.

It is nearly eleven o'clock, and the cold thin rain which has been
drizzling so long, is beginning to pour down in good earnest; the
baked-potato man has departed--the kidney-pie man has just walked
away with his warehouse on his arm--the cheesemonger has drawn in
his blind, and the boys have dispersed. The constant clicking of
pattens on the slippy and uneven pavement, and the rustling of
umbrellas, as the wind blows against the shop-windows, bear
testimony to the inclemency of the night; and the policeman, with
his oilskin cape buttoned closely round him, seems as he holds his
hat on his head, and turns round to avoid the gust of wind and rain
which drives against him at the street-corner, to be very far from
congratulating himself on the prospect before him.

The little chandler's shop with the cracked bell behind the door,
whose melancholy tinkling has been regulated by the demand for
quarterns of sugar and half-ounces of coffee, is shutting up. The
crowds which have been passing to and fro during the whole day, are
rapidly dwindling away; and the noise of shouting and quarrelling
which issues from the public-houses, is almost the only sound that
breaks the melancholy stillness of the night.

There was another, but it has ceased. That wretched woman with the
infant in her arms, round whose meagre form the remnant of her own
scanty shawl is carefully wrapped, has been attempting to sing some
popular ballad, in the hope of wringing a few pence from the