We must now direct our readers' attention for a short space to the parlour of the Boozing-Ken on Saffron Hill. It was nine o'clock in the evening; and, as usual, a motley company was assembled in that place. A dozen persons, men and women, were drinking the vile compounds which the landlord dispensed as "Fine Cordial Gin," "Treble X Ale," "Real Jamaica Rum," "Best Cognac Brandy," and "Noted Stout." At one of the tables sate the Buffer, smoking a long clay pipe, and from time to time paying his respects to a pot of porter which stood before him. He occasionally glanced towards the clock as if he were expecting some one; and then an impatient but subdued curse rose to his lips, proving that the individual for whom he waited was behind his time. "Well, as I was saying," exclaimed an old shabbily-dressed and dissipated looking man, who sate near the fire, "it's a burning shame to make people pay so dear for such liquor as this;"—and he made a quart-pot, which he held in his hand, describe sundry diminutive circles, in order to shake up the liquor whereat he gazed with disgust. "Why do you drink it, then, friend Swiggs?" demanded the Buffer, in a surly tone. "You was once a licensed witler yourself: and I'll be bound no one ever doctored his lush more than you did." "Of course I did!" ejaculated the old man. "The publican can't live without it. Look how he's taxed—look how the police preys upon him—look at the restrictions as to hours that he's subject to. I tell you the publican _must_ adulterate his liquor—aye, even the most honest. But I don't like to drink it so, none the more for all that. Besides, this beer is so preciously done up, that one does not know whether there's most cocculus indicus or most tobacco-juice in it." "What's cocculus indicus?" asked the Buffer. "An Indian berry of so poisonous a nature," was the reply, "that the natives throw it into the ponds to render the fish insensible and make them float on the surface, when of course they are easily caught. That will show you the strength of it—ha! ha!" And the old man chuckled with a sort of malignant triumph, as he recalled to mind his own practices when he was in business, and ere dissipation ruined him.