~340~~had benefited very little by the opening of the ports for oats, or the digestive operation of the new corn-bill. "Hired, old Jarvey?" said Echo, fixing himself in the road before the fiery charioteer. "No, but tired, young Davey," replied the dragsman. "Take a fare to Covent Garden?" "Not if I knows it," was the knowing reply; "so stir your stumps, my tight one, or I shall drive over you." "You had better take us," said Transit. "I tell you I won't; I am a day man, going home, and I don't take night jobs." "But I tell you, you must," said Echo; "so round with your drag, and we'll make your last day a long day, and give you the benefit of resurrection into the bargain." "Why, look ye, my jolly masters, if you're up to a lark of that 'ere sort, take care you don't get a floorer; I've got a rum customer inside what I'm giving a lift to for love--only Josh Hudson, the miller; and if he should chance to wake, I think he'll be for dusting some of your jackets." "What, my friend Josh inside?" vociferated Echo, "then it's all right: go it, my hearties; mount the box one on each hand, and make him drive us to the Finish--while I settle the matter with the inside passenger." Josh, who had all this time been taking _forty winks_, while on his road to his crony Belcher's, soon recognised his patron, Echo; and jarvey, finding that all remonstrance was useless, thought it better to make a "virtue of necessity;" so turning his machine to the right about, he, in due time, deposited us in the purlieus of Covent Garden. The hoarse note of the drowsy night-guard reverberated through the long aisle of the now-forsaken piazzas, as the trembling flame of the parish lamp, flittering in its half-exhausted jet, proclaimed the approach of day; the heavy rumbling of the gardeners' carts, laden with vegetables for the ensuing market, alone disturbed the quiet of the adjoining streets. In a dark angle might be seen the houseless wanderer, or the abandoned profligate, ~341~~gathered up like a lump of rags in a corner, and shivering with the nipping air. The gloom which surrounded us had, for a moment, chilled the wild exuberance of my companions' mirth; and it is more than probable we should have suspended our visit to the _Finish_, at least for that night, had not the jocund note of some uproarious Bacchanalian assailed our ears with the well-known college chant of old Walter de Mapes, "_Mihi est propositum in taberna mori_," which being given in G major, was re-echoed from one end to the other of the arched piazza: at a little distance we perceived the jovial singer reeling forwards, or rather working his way, from right to left, in sinuosities, along, or according to nautical phrase, upon __tack and half tack, bearing up to windward, in habiliments black as a crow, with the exception of his neckcloth and under vest; but judge our surprise and delight, when, upon nearer approach, we discovered the _bon vivant_ to