COMMON INCIDENTS. 25 



pocket volume, containing the exact fares of hackney coachmen, cab- 

 men, and Thames watermen. 



I had also casually detected him sneaking about oil shops, reading 

 the labels upon pickle-jars and currie powders; staring at the ' cartes' 

 appended in restaurateurs' windows : eyeing the muligatawney coffee- 

 houses, and perpetrating various other questionable manoeuvres, 

 slightly antithetical to the liberal feelings of a General, retired upon 

 his pay, plus a handsome metallic independence. My pointed inat- 

 tention to his campaigning efforts, and evident wishes to avoid the re- 

 cital of his wonders, so completely annoyed him, that he cut my com- 

 panion and myself dead, long before our arrival in town. 



This cruel decision on his part did not much affect our feelings, 

 neither did the award appear to have any prejudicial influence upon 

 either the celerity or the destination of the coach, for it arrived, at its 

 usual time, at the Golden Cross Inn, West Strand. 



We all, once more, took refuge in the coffee-room. The General 

 selected a box for himself. 



We could still command a view of his future scene of action. My 

 companion and myself confined our physical exigencies to a bottle of 

 Sherry, proposing to visit the Theatre, and order a late supper. In 

 the meantime, (to the shame of the discrimination of the British pub- 

 lic be it asserted,) no soul in the coffee-room, save ourselves, knew that 

 the abode enclosed an East Indian General ; nobody took any notice 

 of him; nobody cared about him. Even the waiter, the members of 

 whose craft have the credit of nice discriminating powers, even he 

 waited upon him only as he waited upon others, the fool ! The Ge- 

 neral took up a newspaper, laid it down again ordered his dinner. 

 A vulgar fellow, with metal buttons to his leggins, and a double- 

 breasted drab waistcoat, furnished with the same insolent metallic ' de- 

 viations/ strode up to the General's table, and, after whisking the pa- 

 per away, remarked, * you have done with this paper sir ?' The Ge- 

 neral blackened with rage at the cool postulate ; he was petrified by 

 the shock of this vulgar shower-bath. After waiting nearly an hour, 

 under those favouring circumstances, where hunger is relieved by the 

 mental abstraction and interest afforded by a view of a cruet-stand, 

 two salt-cellars, and a square of stale bread, reposing on the bosom of 

 a soft-soap smelling table-cloth. The General ventured upon a re- 

 monstrance with the waiter. ' Beg your pardon, sir directly ;' and 

 almost directly it came, or rather part of that dinner came. A sole, 

 well browned, not blackened, but inclining rather to No. 30, Strand ; 

 dried up in its best parts, and the back bone visible through a deep 

 crack following its entire course ; the whole animal in a cold perspi- 

 ration from the second culinary process, viz : standing a good while 

 before the fire, with the cover on, awaiting its tardy consort the 

 potatoe. The General looked down in despair upon the colliquative 

 phenomenon. The potatoe, however, promised better, the exterior 

 was white and mealy ; alas ! the application of the fork detected for 

 its nucleus a patent cricket ball. 



And now appeared that terror and abomination of continental 

 Europe, the RUMP STEAK ; at least two pounds of the gristly, grid- 



