‘Politics! Why, the gemmen in the House would leave Pitt himself, if he were alive, to come to my pit. There were three of the best of them here to-night, all great horators. - Get on with you, what comes next?’

‘Why, there’s learning and letters.’

‘Pretty things, truly, to keep people from dog-fighting. Why, there’s the young gentlemen from the Abbey School comes here in shoals, leaving books, and letters, and masters too. To tell you the truth, I rather wish they would mind their letters, for a more precious set of young blackguards I never seed. It was only the other day I was thinking of calling in a constable for my own protection, for I thought my pit would have been torn down by them.’

Scarcely knowing what to say, I made an observation at random. ‘You show, by your own conduct,’ said I, ‘that there are other things worth following besides dog-fighting. You practise rat- catching and badger- baiting as well.’

The dog-fancier eyed me with supreme contempt.

‘Your friend here,’ said he, ‘might well call you a new one. When I talks of dog-fighting, I of course means rat-catching, and badger-baiting, ay, and bull-baiting too, just as when I speaks religiously, when I says one I means not one but three. And talking of religion puts me in mind that I have something else to do besides chaffing here, having a batch of dogs to send off by this night’s packet to the Pope of Rome.’

But at last I had seen enough of what London had to show, whether strange or commonplace, so at least I thought, and I ceased to accompany my friend in his rambles about town, and to partake of his adventures. Our friendship, however, still continued unabated, though I saw, in consequence, less of him. I reflected that time was passing on - that the little money I had brought to town was fast consuming, and that I had nothing to depend upon but my own exertions for a fresh supply; and I returned with redoubled application to my pursuits.