Sufficient that Stoney-alley rears its ugly body--though lowly withal--in the very heart of London, and that it may be seen any day in the week in its worst aspect. It has no other: it is always at its worst. Out of it crawl, from sunrise until midnight, men and women, who, when they emerge into the wide thoroughfare which may be regarded as its parent, not uncommonly pause for a few moments, or shade their eyes with their hands, or look about them strangely, as if they have received a surprise, or as if the different world in which they find themselves requires consideration. Into it crawl, from sunrise until midnight, the same men and women, who, it may be observed, draw their breath more freely when they are away from the wide thoroughfares, and who plunge into Stoney-alley as dusty, heat-worn travellers might plunge into a refreshing bath, where the cool waters bring relief to the parched skin. What special comfort these men and women find there, would be matter for amazement to hundreds of thousands of other men and women whose ways of life, happily, lie in pleasanter places. But Stoney-alley, to these crawlers, is Home. Its houses could never have been bright; its pavements and roads--for it has those, though rough specimens, like their treaders--could never have been fresh. Worn-out stones and bricks, having served their time elsewhere and been cashiered, were probably brought into requisition here to commence a new and unclean life. No cart had ever been seen in Stoney-alley: it was too narrow for one. A horse had once lived there--a spare sad blind horse belonging to a costermonger, who worked his patient servant sixteen hours a-day, and fed it upon Heaven knows what. It was a poor patient creature; and as it trudged along, with its head down, it seemed by its demeanour to express an understanding of its meanness. That it was blind may have been a merciful dispensation; for, inasmuch as we do not know for certain whether such beasts can draw comparisons as well as carts, it may have been spared the pangs of envy and bitterness, which it might have experienced at the sight of the well-fed horses that passed it on the road. It was as thin as a live horse well could be--so thin, that a cat might have been forgiven for looking at it with contempt, as being likely to serve no useful purpose after its worldly trudgings were ended. Its mane was the raggedest mane that ever was seen; and it had no tail. What of its hair had not been appropriated by its master the costermonger, had been plucked out ruthlessly, from time to time, by sundry boys and girls in Stoney-alley--being incited thereto by an ingenious youth, who plaited the horsehair into watchguards, and who paid his young thieves in weak liquorice-water, at the rate of a teaspoonful for every dozen hairs--long ones--from the unfortunate horse's tail. For years had this poor beast been wont to stumble over the stones in Stoney-alley when its day's work was over, and wait like