Fencing-rooms, wrestling-rooms, shooting-galleries, places for pigeon-shooting, cock-fighting, dog-fighting, and billiard-rooms; the water, and boat-racing--these were the dazzling scenes which occupied the chief portion of each day. Then, in the evenings, there were theatres, great and small, the various taverns, and other places of nocturnal resort, which are the secret pride and glory of the metropolis. In addition to this, at an advanced period of the night, or rather very early hour in the morning, he sedulously strove to perfect himself in those higher arts and accomplishments, formerly excelled in by one or two of the more eminent of the youthful aristocracy, viz. breaking windows, pulling bells, wrenching off knockers,[10] extinguishing lamps, tripping up old women, watchmen, and children, and spoiling their clothes;--ah, how often in his humbler days, had his heart panted in noble rivalry of such feats as these, and emulation of the notoriety which they earned for the glittering miscreants excelling in them! Ah, Titmouse, Titmouse! Now is your time! _Macte novâ virtute, puer!_ That he could long frequent such scenes as these without forming an extensive and varied acquaintance, would be a very unlikely thing to suppose; and there was one who would fain have joined him in his new adventures--one who, as I have already intimated, had initiated him into the scenes with which he was now becoming so familiar; I mean Snap, who had been at once his "Guide, philosopher, and friend;"