CHEAP DINING _R. Branston_ 84 DITTO _J. Thompson_ 85 TOM CRIB AND THE COPPERSMITH _R. Branston_ 116 VIGNETTE TO DITTO _Ditto_ 117 PETTICOAT GOVERNMENT _W. Hughes_ 155 DITTO _Ditto_ 159 A DUN AT SUPPER TIME _R. Branston_ 193 MOLLY LOWE _J. Thompson_ 220 VIGNETTE TO DITTO _Ditto_ 224 DISTRESSED FATHER _R. Branston_ 247 DITTO _J. Thompson_ 249 JONAS TUNKS _W. Hughes_ 280 PIG WIT _J. Thompson_ 292 VIGNETTE TO DITTO _W. Hughes_ 294 [Illustration: A COOL CONTRIVANCE.] MORNINGS AT BOW STREET. A COOL CONTRIVANCE. One fine summer's morning, a short, dumpy, sunburnt, orange and purple-faced old man--topped with a clean white night-cap, was brought before the magistrate by an officer, who had just found him trudging through the Mall in St. James's Park, with his breeches on a stick over his shoulder, instead of in their natural and proper place. "This comical fad of his, please your worship," said the officer, "frightened the ladies out of their wits, and made such a hubbub among the young blackguards, that I thought it my duty to take him into custody; but he kicked and sprunted at such a rate, that it was as much as two or three of us could do to get his breeches on again." "Why do you walk without your breeches, my honest friend?" said the magistrate, in a tone of kind expostulation.[1] "Because I was so hot that I was determined not to be bothered with breeches any longer!" replied the queer old man--twinkling his little deep-set French-grey eyes, and sending forth a long-drawn sultry sigh. The magistrate asked him something of his history; to which he replied, that he was born at Great Marlow, in Buckinghamshire, where his father was a small farmer. "There was a rare lot of us young ones," said he, "running about the lanes, and paddling in the cool green ponds, like so many goslings. For myself, I was made a shoemaker of, by a gentleman who thought me too pretty for a plough-boy: and so I've been making shoes in London these last forty years; but latterly I'm always so hot and dry, that I can make no more shoes, not I, and I'll take to the fields again." His worship was of opinion that the poor fellow's wits were wandering, and ordered that he should be taken care of in Tothill-field's Bridewell, until his parish could be ascertained. [Illustration] A COSTERMONGER'S QUERY. A person, who called himself a "master costermonger," having, with some difficulty, obtained access to the table, made his best bow to the magistrate, and said, "Please your _vurship_, vaut am I to do about my _bitch_?" "About _what_?" said his worship.