It is curious to what a degree persons, brought up in certain occupations in a great city, are shut up from a knowledge of the world, and carry their simplicity to a pitch of unheard of extravagance. London is the only place in which the child grows completely up into the man. I have known characters of this kind, which, in the way of childish ignorance and self-pleasing delusion, exceeded any thing to be met with in Shakespear or Ben Jonson, or the old comedy. For instance, the following may be taken as a true sketch. Imagine a person with a florid, shining complexion like a plough-boy, large staring teeth, a merry eye, his hair stuck into the fashion with curling-irons and pomatum, a slender figure, and a decent suit of black—add to which the thoughtlessness of the school-boy, the forwardness of the thriving tradesman, and the plenary consciousness of the citizen of London—and you have Mr. Dunster before you, the fishmonger in the Poultry. You shall hear how he chirps over his cups, and exults in his private opinions. ‘I’ll play no more with you,’ I said, ‘Mr. Dunster—you are five points in the game better than I am.’ I had just lost three half-crown rubbers at cribbage to him, which loss of mine he presently thrust into a canvas pouch (not a silk purse) out of which he had produced just before, first a few halfpence, then half a dozen pieces of silver, then a handfull of guineas, and lastly, lying _perdu_ at the bottom, a fifty pound Bank-Note. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ I said, ‘I should like to play you a game at marbles’—this was at a sort of Christmas party or Twelfth Night merry-making. ‘Marbles!’ said Dunster, catching up the sound, and his eye brightening with childish glee, ‘What! you mean _ring-taw_?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘I should beat you at it, to a certainty. I was one of the best in our school (it was at Clapham, sir, the Rev. Mr. Denman’s, at Clapham, was the place where I was brought up) though there were two others there better than me. They were the best that ever were. I’ll tell you, sir, I’ll give you an idea. There was a water-butt or cistern, sir, at our school, that turned with a cock. Now suppose that brass-ring that the window-curtain is fastened to, to be the cock, and that these boys were standing where we are, about twenty feet off—well, sir, I’ll tell you what I have seen them do. One of them had a favourite taw (or _alley_ we used to call them) he’d take aim at the cock of the cistern with this marble, as I may do now. Well, sir, will you believe it? such was his strength of knuckle and certainty of aim, he’d hit it, turn it, let the water out, and then, sir, when the water had run out as much as it was wanted, the other boy (he’d just the same strength of knuckle, and the same certainty of eye) he’d aim at it too, be sure to hit it, turn it round, and stop the water from running out. Yes, what I tell you is very remarkable, but it’s true. One of these boys was named