My friend brought me a carpet-bag, with what clothes I wanted in it. He advised me, more over, to go to Whitecross-street at once, for a sojourn at Mr. Blowman’s domicile would cost me something like a guinea per diem. So, summoning Mr. Aminadab, who had obligingly waited to see if I could raise the money or not, I announced my intention of being conveyed to jail at once. I paid half-a-guinea for the accommodation I had had at Mr. Blowman’s; I made a pecuniary acknowledgment of Mr. Aminadab’s politeness; and I did not fail to remember the old man in the white halter and the spirituous mantle. Then, when I had also remembered a red-headed little Jew boy, who acted as Cerberus to this Hades, and appeared to be continually washing his hands (though they never seemed one whit the cleaner for the operation), another cab was called, and off I went to Whitecross-street, with a heart considerably heavier than a paving stone. I had already been three hours in captivity, and it was getting on for eight o’clock. The cab was proceeding along Holborn, and I thought, involuntarily, of Mr. Samuel Hall, black and grimy, making his progress through the same thoroughfares, by the Oxford Road, and so on to Tyburn, bowing to the crowd, and cursing the Ordinary. The foot-pavement on either side was thronged with people at their Christmas marketing, or, at least, on some Christmas business—so it seemed to me. Goose Clubs were being held at the public houses—sweeps for sucking-pigs, plum-puddings, and bottles of gin. Some ladies and gentlemen had begun their Christmas rather too early, and were meandering unsteadily over the flag-stones. Fiddlers were in great request, being sought for in small beershops, and borne off bodily from bars, to assist at Christmas Eve merry-makings. An immense deal of hand-shaking was going on, and I was very much afraid, a good deal more “standing” than was consistent with the strict rules of temperance. Every body kept saying that it was “only once a year,” and made that an apology (so prone are mankind to the use of trivial excuses!) for their sins against Father Mathew. Loud laughter rang through the frosty air. Pleasant jokes, innocent “chaff,” passed; grocers’ young men toiled lustily, wiping their hot faces ever and anon; butchers took no rest; prize beef melted away from very richness before my eyes; and in the midst of all the bustle and jollity, the crowding, laughing, drinking, and shouting, I was still on my unvarying way to Whitecross-street. There was a man resting a child’s coffin on a railing, and chattering with a pot-boy, with whom he shared a pot of porter “with the sharp edge taken off.” There are heavy hearts—heavier perchance than yours, in London, this Christmas Eve, my friend Prupper, thought I. To-morrow’s dawn will bring sorrow and faint-heartedness to many thousands—to oceans of humanity, of which you are but a single drop.