1828.] a Romance of High Holborn. 53 
gentle heart was touched ; and, after fumbling about for some time, as 
if feeling for some precious document, she thrust a paper confusedly, 
yet significantly, into my hands, and disappeared in the thick of the 
assembly. For an instant—so unexpected was this act—I stood like 
one bewildered ; but, soon recovering my self-possession, moved direct 
towards the chandelier, with a view to peruse an epistle expressive of 
woman’s fondest love. As with glistening eyes I proceeded to tear open 
the billet, a flood of transporting thoughts swept over me. I fancied 
that I was on the eve of acquaintance with ; but, judge my 
astonishment, when, instead of the expected document, the key to such 
transporting bliss, I read, engraved in large German text, on a dirty 
square card, embossed at the edge with flowers, the revolting, business- 
like address of 
Gr. Thomas PMi—e, 
Tailor, 
116, Wigh Wolborn. 
The reader, if he possess sensibility, will naturally enough conclude 
that I did not remain long in the scene of this extraordinary adventure. 
I retired, in fact, the very first opportunity, cogitating deeply on my 
road home, and not without certain superstitious misgivings on the more 
than singularity that had thus a third time thrown me into the arms of 
this most accursed creditor. It so happened that, the next day, I dined 
with C——. Of course the masquerade, and with that the tailor, were 
the first topics of conversation between us. Both allowed that the cir- 
cumstances respecting his late appearance were uncommon ; but there, 
with my friend, the matter ended: with me it was a more enduring 
subject for reflection; and, after a night kept up till a late hour over 
a bowl of C ’s most faultless punch, I set out, moody and appre- 
hensive, to my humble abode. By this time it was past three o’clock : 
the streets were nearly all deserted ; the lamps looked dim and dis- 
consolate ; and nothing disturbed the general stillness but now and then 
the distant rattling of a hackney-coach, the squall of some enamoured 
cat from the house-tops, or the sleepy growl of the watch-dog, as he 
shifted from side to side, under the influence of a dyspeptic imagination. 
While thoughtfully plodding onwards, a sudden noise from the Holborn 
end of Drury Lane took my attention: it evidently proceeded from a 
row—a systematic, scientific row ; and, indeed, as I drew near the scene 
of action, I could distinctly hear the watchman’s oaths blending in deep 
chorus with the treble of some dozen or two valorous exquisites. I 
have often observed that, when a man is just touched with drink—that 
is to say, when he is as drunk as any gentleman could reasonably desire 
to be—he experiences—no matter how orderly when sober—peculiar 
satisfaction from a fight. A genius for war rises within him—the God of 
battles inspires his fist! Such was precisely my case. I felt certain 
rising abstract ideas of pugnacity, and conceived myself bound to indulge 
them on the first head and shoulders I should meet. This spirit brought 
me at once into the thick of the fight, and, before I was well aware of my 
proximity, I found myself fast anchored alongside a veteran watchman, 
with a pigtail and half a nose. The conflict now commenced in good 
earnest: there were few or no attempts at favouritism ; the blows of one 
friend told equally well on the scull of another ; watchmen assaulted 
watchmen with a zeal respectable for its sincerity ;. and, indeed, had 
