On the morrow, rumours
of this new act of daring on the road yielded matter for a few hours'
conversation through the town, and a Public Progress of some fine
gentleman (half-drunk) to Tyburn, dressed in the newest fashion, and
damning the ordinary with unspeakable gallantry and grace, furnished to
the populace, at once a pleasant excitement and a wholesome and profound
example.
Among all the dangerous characters who, in such a state of society,
prowled and skulked in the metropolis at night, there was one man from
whom many as uncouth and fierce as he, shrunk with an involuntary dread.
Who he was, or whence he came, was a question often asked, but which
none could answer. His name was unknown, he had never been seen until
within about eight days or thereabouts, and was equally a stranger to
the old ruffians, upon whose haunts he ventured fearlessly, as to the
young. He could be no spy, for he never removed his slouched hat to look
about him, entered into conversation with no man, heeded nothing that
passed, listened to no discourse, regarded nobody that came or went.
But so surely as the dead of night set in, so surely this man was in the
midst of the loose concourse in the night-cellar where outcasts of every
grade resorted; and there he sat till morning.
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