J22 PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF Mil. WATKINS TOTTLE. 



" Werry well, Sir," replied that important functionary ; adding in 

 a confidential manner, " I'd adwise the gen'lm'n's friends to settle. 

 You see it's a mere trifle ; and, unless the gen'lm'n means to go up 

 afore the court, it's hardly worth while waiting for detainers, you 

 know. Our governor's wide awake, he is ; I'll never say nothin' agin 

 him, nor no man ; but he knows what's o'clock, he does, uncommon." 

 Having delivered this eloquent, and, to Parsons, particularly intelli- 

 gible harangue, the meaning of which was eked out by divers nods 

 and winks, the gentleman in the boots reseated himself in the cab, 

 which went rapidly off, and was soon out of sight. Mr. Gabriel 

 Parsons continued to pace up and down the pathway for some mi- 

 nutes, apparently absorbed in deep meditation. The result of his 

 cogitations appeared to be perfectly satisfactory to himself, for he ran 

 briskly into the house ; said that business had suddenly summoned 

 him to town ; that he had desired his messenger to inform Mr. 

 Watkins Tottle of the fact ; and that they would return together to 

 dinner. He then hastily equipped himself for a drive, and mounting 

 his gig was soon on his way to the establishment of Mr. Solomon 

 Jacobs, situate (as Mr. Watkins Tottle had informed him) in Cursitor- 

 street, Chancery-lane. 



When a man is in a violent hurry to get on, and has a specific ob- 

 ject in view, the attainment of which depends on the completion of 

 his journey, the difficulties which interpose themselves in his way 

 appear not only to be innumerable, but to have been called into ex- 

 istence especially for the occasion. The remark is by no means a 

 new one, and Mr. Gabriel Par?ons had practical and painful expe- 

 rience of its justice in the course of his drive. There are three classes 

 of animated objects which prevent your driving with any degree of 

 comfort or celerity through streets which are but little frequented 

 they are pigs, children, and old women. On the occasion we are de- 

 scribing, the pigs were luxuriating on cabbage-stalks, and the shut- 

 tlecocks fluttered from the little deal battledores, and the children 

 played in the road ; and women, with a basket in one hand and the 

 street-door key in the other, would cross just before the horse's head, 

 until Mr. Gabriel Parsons was perfectly savage with vexation, and 

 quite hoarse with hoi-ing and imprecating. Then, when he got into 

 Fleet-street, there was "a stoppage," in which people in vehicles 

 have the satisfaction of remaining stationary for half an hour, and 

 envying the slowest pedestrians ; and where policemen rush about, 

 and seize hold of horses' bridles, and back them into shop windows, 

 by way of clearing the road and preventing confusion. At length 

 Mr. Gabriel Parsons turned into Chancery-lane, and having inquired 

 for, and been directed to, Cursitor-street (for it was a locality of 

 which he was quite ignorant), he soon found himself opposite the 

 house of Mr. Solomon Jacobs. Confiding his horse and gig to the 

 care of one of the fourteen boys who had followed him from the other 

 side of Blackfriars-bridge on the chance of his requiring their ser- 

 vices, Mr. Gabriel Parsons crossed the road, and knocked at an inner 

 door, the upper part of which was glass, grated like the windows of 

 this inviting mansion with iron bars, painted white, to look com- 

 fortable. 



