On this very day, in his account, he first met the "fiery, enthusiastic and open-hearted," pleasure-loving young Irishman, whom he calls Francis Ardry, who took him to the theatre and to "the strange and eccentric places of London," and no doubt helped to give him the feeling of "a regular Arabian Nights' entertainment." C. G. Leland {87} tells a story told to him by one who might have been the original of Ardry. The story is the only independent evidence of Borrow's London life. This "old gentleman" had been in youth for a long time the most intimate friend of George Borrow, who was, he said, a very wild and eccentric youth. "One night, when skylarking about London, Borrow was pursued by the police, as he wished to be, even as Panurge so planned as to be chased by the night- watch. He was very tall and strong in those days, a trained shoulder- hitter, and could run like a deer. He was hunted to the Thames, and there they thought they had him. But the Romany Rye made for the edge, and leaping into the wan water, like the Squyre in the old ballad, swam to the other side, and escaped." It is no wonder he "did not like reviewing at all," especially as he "never could understand why reviews were instituted; works of merit do not require to be reviewed, they can speak for themselves, and require no praising; works of no merit at all will die of themselves, they require no killing." He forgot "The Dairyman's Daughter," and he could not foresee the early fate of "Lavengro" itself. He preferred manlier crime and riskier deception to reviewing. As he read over the tales of rogues, he says, he became again what he had been as a boy, a necessitarian, and could not "imagine how, taking all circumstances into consideration, these highwaymen, these pickpockets, should have been anything else than highwaymen and pickpockets." These were the days of such books as "The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Samuel Denmore Hayward, denominated the Modern Macheath, who suffered at the Old Bailey, on Tuesday, November 27, 1821, for the Crime of Burglary," by Pierce Egan, embellished with a highly-finished miniature by Mr. Smart, etched by T. R. Cruikshank; and a facsimile of his handwriting. London, 1822."