Hook, in his letter to Broderip (facsimile given elsewhere) suggests that as they are going to Ascot races tête-à-tête, it might be as well to speak of it as neck-and-neck. A rough sketch is enclosed of the Zoological Gardens, Hook pointing with pride to the necks of the giraffes.
We will select one line of about three or four miles, which will answer by way of an example of what we mean: A man, driving himself (without a servant), starts from Bishopsgate-street for Kilburn. The day is cold and rainy—his fingers are benumbed; his two coats buttoned up; his money in tight pantaloon-pockets; his horse restive, apt to kick if the reins touch his tail; his gloves soaked with wet; and himself half-an-hour too late for dinner. He has to pull up in the middle of the street in Shoreditch, and pay a toll;—he means to return, therefore he takes a ticket, letter A. On reaching Shoreditch Church, he turns into the Curtain Road, pulls up again, drags off his wet glove with his teeth, his other hand being fully occupied in holding up the reins and the whip; pays again; gets another ticket, number 482; drags on his glove; buttons up his coats, and rattles away into Old Street Road; another gate; more pulling and poking, and unbuttoning and squeezing. He pays, and takes another ticket, letter L. The operation of getting all to rights takes place once more, nor is it repeated until he reaches Goswell Street Road; here he performs all the ceremonies we have already described, for a fourth time, and gets a fourth ticket, 732, which is to clear him through the gates in the New Road, as far as the bottom of Pentonville;—arrived there, he performs once more all the same evolutions, and procures a fifth ticket, letter X, which, unless some sinister accident occur, is to carry him clear to the Paddington Road; but opening the fine space of the Regent's Park, at the top of Portland Street, the north breeze blowing fresh from Hampstead, bursts upon his buggy, and all the tickets which he had received from all the gates which he has paid, and which he had stuffed seriatim between the cushion and lining of his dennet, suddenly rise, like a covey of partridges, from the corner, and he sees the dingy vouchers for his expenditure proceeding down Portland Street at full speed. They are rescued, however, muddy and filthy as they are, by the sweeper of the crossing, who is, of course, rewarded by the driver for his attention with a larger sum than he had originally disbursed for all the gates; and when deposited again in the vehicle, not in their former order of arrangement, the unfortunate traveller spends at least ten minutes at the next gate in selecting the particular ticket which is there required to insure his free passage.
Conquering all these difficulties, he reaches Paddington Gate, where he pays afresh, and obtains a ticket, 691, with which he proceeds swimmingly until stopped again at Kilburn, to pay a toll, which would clear him all the way to Stanmore, if he were not going to dine at a house three doors beyond the very turnpike, where he pays for the seventh time, and where he obtains a seventh ticket, letter G.
He dines and "wines;" and the bee's-wing from the citizen's port gives new velocity to Time. The dennet was ordered at eleven; and, although neither tides nor the old gentleman just mentioned, wait for any man, except Tom Hill, horses and dennets will. It is nearer midnight than eleven when the visitor departs, even better buttoned up than in the morning, his lamps giving cheerfulness to the equipage, and light to the road; and his horse whisking along (his nostrils pouring forth breath like smoke from safety-valves), and the whole affair actually in motion at the rate of ten miles per hour. Stopped at Paddington. "Pay here?"—"L."—"Won't do."—"G?"—(The horse fidgety all this time, and the driver trying to read the dirty tickets by the little light which is emitted through the tops of his lamps,)—"X?"—"It's no letter, I tell you?"—"482,"—"No." At this juncture the clock strikes twelve—the driver is told that his reading and rummaging are alike useless, for that a new day has begun. The coats are, therefore, unbuttoned—the gloves pulled off—the money to be fished out—the driver discovers that his last shilling was paid to the ostler at the inn where his horse was fed and that he must change a sovereign to pay the gate. This operation the toll-keeper performs; nor does the driver discover, until the morning, that one of the half-crowns and four of the shillings which he has received, are bad. Satisfied, however, with what has occurred, he determines at all hazards to drive home over the stones, and avoid all further importunities from the turnpike-keepers. Accordingly, away he goes along Oxford Street, over the pavement, working into one hole and tumbling into another, like a ball on a trou madame table, until, at the end of George Street, St. Giles's, snap goes his axle-tree; away goes his horse, dashing the dennet against a post at the corner of Plumtree Street, leaving the driver, with his collar-bone and left arm broken, on the pavement, at the mercy of two or three popish bricklayers and a couple of women of the town, who humanely lift him to the coach-stand, and deposit him in a hackney-chariot, having previously cut off the skirts of both his coats, and relieved him, not only of his loose change, but of a gold repeater, a snuff-box, and a pocket-book full of notes and memoranda, of no use but to the owner.
The unhappy victim at length reaches home, in agonies from the continued roughness of the pre-adamite pavement, is put to bed—doctors are sent for, the fractures are reduced, and in seven weeks he is able to crawl into his counting-house to write a cheque for a new dennet, and give his people orders to shoot his valuable horse, who has so dreadfully injured himself on the fatal night as to be past recovery.
TOM SHERIDAN'S ADVENTURE.[66]
Tom Sheridan was staying at Lord Craven's at Benham (or rather Hampstead), and one day proceeded on a shooting excursion, like Hawthorn, with only "his dog and his gun," on foot, and unattended by companion or keeper; the sport was bad—the birds few and shy—and he walked and walked in search of game, until, unconsciously, he entered the domain of some neighbouring squire.