6:20 A DINNER AT POPLAR WALK. 



" Very well thank ye good bye." 



" Be punctual." 



4f Certainly : good morning." 



" I say, Minns, you've got a card ?" 



" Yes, I have : thank ye." And Mr. Octavius Bagshaw departed, 

 leaving his cousin looking forward to his visit of the following Sun- 

 day with the feelings of a pennyless poet to the weekly visit of his 

 Scotch landlady. 



Sunday arrived ; the sky was bright and clear ; crowds of clean, 

 decently-dressed people were hurrying along the streets, intent on 

 their different schemes of pleasure for the clay ; and every thing, and 

 every body, looked cheerful and happy but Mr. Augustus Minns. 



The day was fine, but the heat was considerable ; and, by the time 

 Mr. Minns had fagged up the shady side of Fleet Street, Cheapside, 

 and Threadneedle Street, he had become pretty warm, tolerably 

 dusty, and it was getting late into the bargain. By the most extra- 

 ordinary good fortune, however, a coach was waiting at the Flower 

 Pot, into which Mr. Augustus Minn's got, on the solemn assurance 

 of the cad that the coach would start in three minutes that being 

 the time the coach was allowed to wait " by act of Parliament." A 

 quarter of an hour elapsed, and there were no signs of moving. 

 Minns looked at his watch for the sixth time. 



" Coachman, are you going or not?" bawled Mr. Minns (with his 

 head and half his body out of the coach-window). 



" Di rectly, Sir," said the coachman, with his hands in his 

 pockets, looking as much unlike a man in a hurry as possible. 

 " Bill, take them cloths off." Five minutes more elapsed ; at the end 

 of which time the coachman mounted the box, from whence he looked 

 down the street, and up the street, and hailed all the pedestrians for 

 another five minutes. 



" Coachman ! If you don't go this moment I shall get out," said 

 Mr. Minns, rendered desperate by the lateness of the hour, and the 

 impossibility of being in Poplar Walk at the appointed time. 



" Going this minute, Sir," was the reply ; and, accordingly, the 

 coach trundled on for a couple of hundred yards, and then stopped 

 again. Minns doubled himself up into a corner of the coach, and 

 abandoned himself to fate. 



" Tell your missis to make haste, my dear 'cause here's a gentle- 

 man inside vich is in a desperate hurry." In about five minutes more 

 missis appeared, with a child and two band-boxes, and then they 

 set off. 



" Be quiet, love !" said the mother who saw the agony of Minns, 

 as the child rubbed its shoes on his new drab trowsers " be quiet, 

 dear ! Here, play with this parasol don't kick the gentleman." 



The interesting infant, however, with its agreeable plaything, con- 

 trived to tax Mr. Minus's ingenuity, in the " art of self-defence," 

 during the ride; and amidst these infantile assaults, and the mother's 

 apologies, the distracted gentleman arrived at the Swan, when, on 

 referring to his watch, to his great dismay he discovered that it was 

 a quarter past five. The white house, the stables, the " Beware of 

 the Dog," every landmark was passed, with a rapidity not unusual 



