"_The traps! the traps!_" vociferated some one in the adjoining room; "_Douse the glims! stash it--stash it!_" was the general exclamation in ours: but before the party could effect their purpose, the principals were in safe custody: and the reader (i.e. pocket-book) containing all the stolen property, preserved from the flames by the wary eye and prompt arm of the _indefatigable_ Bishop. Before any one was allowed to depart the room, a general muster and search took place, in which poor Bob Transit felt most awkward, as some voluptuous sketches found in his pocket called forth She dies; sad outcast! heart-broke by remorse; Pale, stretch'd against th' inhospitable doors; While gathering gossips taunt the flesh less corse, And thank their gods _that they were never w--res!_ ~346~~the severe animadversion of his worship, the beak, who lamented that such fine talent should be thus immorally applied: with this brief lecture, and a caution for the future, we were allowed to escape; while almost all the rest, male and female, were marched off to an adjoining watch-house, to abide the public examination and fiat of the morrow. Of all the party, old Crony was the most sensibly affected by the late rencontre; twenty bottles of soda-water could not have produced a more important change. His conversation and appearance had, in an instant, recovered their wonted steadiness; and before we were half across the market, Crony was moralizing upon the dangers of the scene from which we had so recently and fortunately escaped. But hearts young and buoyant as ours, when lighted up by the fire of enterprise, and provoked to action by potent charges of the grape, were not to be dashed by one repulse, or compelled to beat a retreat at the first brush with a reconnoitring party; we had sallied forth in pursuit of a spree, and frolic we were determined upon, "While misty night, with silent pace, Steals gradual o'er the wanton chase." There is something very romantic in prowling the streets of the metropolis at midnight, in quest of adventure; at least, so my companions insisted, and I had embarked too deeply in the night's debauch to moralize upon its consequences. How many a sober-looking face demure when morning dawns would blush to meet the accusing spirit of the night, dressed out in all the fantasies of whim and eccentricity with which the rosy god of midnight revelry clothes his laughter-loving bacchanals-- "While sleep attendant at her drowsy fane, Parent of ease, envelopes all your train!"