Consider, Paul, that though hanging is a bad fate, starving is a worse; wherefore fill your glass, and let us drink to the health of that great donkey, the people, and may we never want saddles to ride it!’

‘To the great donkey,’ cried Paul, tossing off his bumper; ‘may your (y)ears be as long! But I own to you, my friend, that I cannot enter into your plans. And, as a token of my resolution, I shall drink no more, for my eyes already begin to dance in the air: and if I listen longer to your resistless eloquence, my feet may share the same fate!’

So saying, Paul rose; nor could any entreaty, on the part of his entertainer, persuade him to resume his seat.

‘Nay, as you will,’ said Pepper, affecting a nonchalant tone, and arranging his cravat before the glass. ‘Nay, as you will. Ned Pepper requires no man’s companionship against his liking; and if the noble spark of ambition be not in your bosom, ’tis no use spending my breath in blowing at what only existed in my too flattering opinion of your qualities. So, then, you propose to return to Mac Grawler, (the scurvy old cheat!) and pass the inglorious remainder of your life in the mangling of authors and the murder of grammar? Go, my good fellow, go! scribble again and for ever for Mac Grawler, and let him live upon thy brains, instead of suffering thy brains to –’

‘Hold!’ cried Paul. ‘Although I may have some scruples which prevent my adoption of that rising line of life you have proposed to me, yet you are very much mistaken if you imagine me so spiritless as any longer to subject myself to the frauds of that rascal Mac Grawler. No! My present intention is to pay my old nurse a visit. It appears to me passing strange, that though I have left her so many weeks, she has never relented enough to track me out, which one would think would have been no difficult matter: and now you see that I am pretty well off, having five guineas and four shillings, all my own, and she can scarcely think I want her money, my heart melts to her, and I shall go and ask pardon for my haste!’

‘Pshaw! Sentimental,’ cried Long Ned, a little alarmed at the thought of Paul’s gliding from those clutches which he thought had now so firmly closed upon him. ‘Why, you surely don’t mean, after having once tasted the joys of independence, to go back to the boozing ken, and bear all Mother Lobkins’s drunken tantrums! Better have stayed with Mac Grawler of the two!’

‘You mistake me,’ answered Paul; ‘I mean solely to make it up with her, and get her permission to see the world. My ultimate intention is – to travel.’

‘Right,’ cried Ned, ‘on the high-road – and on horseback, I hope!’

‘No, my Colossus of Roads! No! I am in doubt whether or not I shall enlist in a marching regiment, or (give me your advice on it) I fancy I have a great turn for the stage, ever since I saw Garrick in Richard. Shall I turn stroller? It must be a merry life.’

‘O, the devil!’ cried Ned. ‘I myself once did Cassio in a barn, and everyone swore I enacted the drunken scene to perfection: but you have no notion what a lamentable life it is to a man of any susceptibility. No, my friend. No! There is only one line in all the old plays worthy of thy attention – “Toby or not toby,* that is the question.” – I forget the rest!’

‘Well!’ said our hero, answering in the same jocular vein, ‘I confess, I have “the actor’s high ambition.” It is astonishing how my heart beat, when Richard cried out, “Come bustle,† bustle!” Yes, Pepper, avaunt! – “A thousand hearts are great within my bosom.”’

‘Well, well,’ said Long Ned, stretching himself, ‘since you are so fond of the play, what say you to an excursion thither tonight? Garrick acts!’

‘Done!’ cried Paul.

‘Done!’ echoed lazily Long Ned, rising with that blasé air which distinguishes the matured man of the world from the enthusiastic tyro. ‘Done! and we will adjourn afterwards to the White Horse.’

‘But stay a moment,’ said Paul; ‘if you remember I owed you a guinea when I last saw you: here it is!’

‘Nonsense,’ exclaimed Long Ned, refusing the money, ‘nonsense! you want the money at present; pay me when you are richer. Nay, never be coy about it: debts of honour are not paid now as they used to be. We lads of the Fish Lane Club have changed all that. Well, well, if I must.’

And Long Ned, seeing that Paul insisted, pocketed the guinea. When this delicate matter had been arranged, –

‘Come,’ said Pepper, ‘come get your hat; but, bless me! I have forgotten one thing.’

‘What?’

‘Why, my fine Paul, consider, the play is a bang-up sort of a place; look at your coat and your waistcoat, that’s all!’

Our hero was struck dumb with this argumentum ad hominem. But Long Ned, after enjoying his perplexity, relieved him of it, by telling him that he knew of an honest tradesman who kept a ready-made shop, just by the theatre, and who would fit him out in a moment.

In fact, Long Ned was as good as his word; he carried Paul to a tailor, who gave him for the sum of thirty shillings, half ready money, half on credit, a green coat with a tarnished gold lace, a pair of red inexpressibles, and a pepper-and-salt waistcoat; it is true, they were somewhat of the largest, for they had once belonged to no less a person than Long Ned himself: but Paul did not then regard those niceties of apparel, as he was subsequently taught to do by Gentleman George (a personage hereafter to be introduced to our reader), and he went to the theatre, as well satisfied with himself as if he had been Mr T—, or the Count de M—.

Our adventurers are now quietly seated in the theatre, and we shall not think it necessary to detail the performances they saw, or the observations they made. Long Ned was one of those superior beings of the road who would not for the world have condescended to appear anywhere but in the boxes, and, accordingly, the friends procured a couple of places in the dress-tier. In the next box to the one our adventurers adorned, they remarked, more especially than the rest of the audience, a gentleman and a young lady seated next each other; the latter, who was about thirteen years old, was so uncommonly beautiful, that Paul, despite his dramatic enthusiasm, could scarcely divert his eyes from her countenance to the stage. Her hair, of a bright and fair auburn, hung in profuse ringlets about her neck, shedding a softer shade upon a complexion in which the roses seemed just budding, as it were, into blush. Her eyes large, blue, and rather languishing than brilliant, were curtained by the darkest lashes; her mouth seemed literally girt with smiles; so numberless were the dimples, that every time the full, ripe, dewy lips were parted, rose into sight; and the enchantment of the dimples was aided by two rows of teeth more dazzling than the richest pearls that ever glittered on a bride. But the chief charm of the face was its exceeding and touching air of innocence and girlish softness; you might have gazed for ever upon that first unspeakable bloom, that all untouched and stainless down, which seemed as if a very breath could mar it. Perhaps the face might have wanted animation; but, perhaps, also, it borrowed from that want an attraction; the repose of the features was so soft and gentle, that the eye wandered there with the same delight, and left it with the same reluctance, which it experiences in dwelling on or in quitting those hues which are found to harmonize the most with its vision. But while Paul was feeding his gaze on this young beauty, the keen glances of Long Ned had found an object no less fascinating in a large gold watch which the gentleman who accompanied the damsel ever and anon brought to his eye, as if he were waxing a little weary of the length of the pieces or the lingering progression of time.

‘What a beautiful face!’ whispered Paul.

‘Is the face gold, then, as well as the back?’ whispered Long Ned in return.

Our hero started, frowned, – and despite the gigantic stature of his comrade, told him, very angrily, to find some other subject for jesting. Ned in his turn stared, but made no reply.

Meanwhile Paul, though the lady was rather too young to fall in love with, began wondering what relationship her companion bore to her. Though the gentleman altogether was handsome, yet his features, and the whole character of his face, were widely different from those on which Paul gazed with such delight. He was not, seemingly, above five-and-forty, but his forehead was knit into many a line and furrow; and in his eyes the light, though searching, was more sober and staid than became his years. A disagreeable expression played about the mouth, and the shape of the face, which was long and thin, considerably detracted from the prepossessing effect of a handsome aquiline nose, fine teeth, and a dark, manly, though sallow complexion. There was a mingled air of shrewdness and distraction in the expression of his face.