Taylor himself told me this; and yet, although he
would have rejoiced if the man had dropped down dead, and would
willingly have shot him, he was dumb. The check operated in an
instant. He saw himself without a penny, and in the streets. He
went down into the cellar, and raged and wept for an hour. Had he
been a workman, he would probably have throttled his enemy, or tried
to do it, or what is more likely, his enemy would not have dared to
treat him in such fashion, but he was powerless, and once losing his
situation he would have sunk down into the gutter, whence he would
have been swept by the parish into the indiscriminate heap of London
pauperism, and carted away to the Union, a conclusion which was worse
to him than being hung.
Another of our friends was a waiter in one of the public-houses and
chop-houses combined, of which there are so many in the Strand. He
lived in a wretched alley which ran from St. Clement's Church to
Boswell Court--I have forgotten its name--a dark crowded passage. He
was a man of about sixty--invariably called John, without the
addition of any surname. I knew him long before we opened our room,
for I was in the habit of frequently visiting the chop-house in which
he served.
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