“They are looking after the hearse which is carrying the remains of Byron up Tottenham Road.”
“I have seen the man,” said my friend, as he turned back the way he had come, “so I can dispense with seeing the hearse—I saw the living man at Venice—ah, a great poet.”
“Yes,” said I, “a great poet, it must be so, everybody says so—what a destiny! What a difference in the fate of men! but ’tis said he was unhappy; you have seen him, how did he look?”
“Oh, beautiful!”
“But did he look happy?”
“Why, I can’t say he looked very unhappy; I saw him with two . . . very fair ladies; but what is it to you whether the man was unhappy or not? Come, where shall we go—to Joey’s? His hugest bear—”
“Oh, I have had enough of bears; I have just been worried by one.”
“The publisher?”
“Yes.”
“Then come to Joey’s, three dogs are to be launched at his bear: as they pin him, imagine him to be the publisher.”