Away he scudded—elbowing, perforce,
Thro’ cads, and lads, and many a Hebrew worrier,
[Pg 324]
With fruit, knives, pencils,—all dirt cheap of course,
Coachmen, and hawkers of the Globe and “Currier;”
Away!—the cookmaid is not such a skurrier,
When, fit to split her gingham as she goes,
With six just striking on the clock to hurry her,
She strides along with one of her three beaux,
To get well placed at “Ashley’s”—now Ducrow’s.
“I wonder if her moon is full to-night!”
He mutter’d, jealous as a Spanish Don,
When, lo!—to aggravate that inward spite,
In glancing at a board he spied thereon
A play-bill for dramatic folks to con,
In letters such as those may read, who run,
“‘KING JOHN’—oh yes,—I recollect King John!
‘My Lord, they say five moons’—five moons!—well done!
I wonder Ellen was content with one!
“Five moons—all full!—and all at once in heav’n!
She should have lived in that prolific reign!”
Here he arrived in front of number seven,
Th’ abode of all his joy and all his pain;
A sudden tremor shot through every vein,
He wish’d he’d come up by the heavy waggon,
And felt an impulse to turn back again,
Oh, that he ne’er had quitted the Old Dragon!
Then came a sort of longing for a flagon.
His tongue and palate seem’d so parch’d with drouth,—
The very knocker fill’d his soul with dread,
As if it had a living lion’s mouth,
With teeth so terrible, and tongue so red,
In which he had engaged to put his head,
The bell-pull turn’d his courage into vapour,
As though ’t would cause a shower-bath to shed
[Pg 325]
Its thousand shocks, to ma............