alert, and made such good use of his time, that in another moment

he was scouring away up by a by-street, after shedding his cloak,

hat, long hatband, white pocket-handkerchief, and other

symbolical tears.

These, the people tore to pieces and scattered far and wide with

great enjoyment, while the tradesmen hurriedly shut up their

shops; for a crowd in those times stopped at nothing, and was a

monster much dreaded. They had already got to the length of

opening the hearse to take the coffin out, when some brighter

genius proposed instead, its being escorted to its destination

amidst general rejoicing. Practical suggestions being much

needed, this suggestion, too, was received with acclamation, and

the coach was immediately filled with eight inside and a dozen

out, while as many people got on the roof of the hearse as could by

any exercise of ingenuity stick upon it. Among the first of these

volunteers was Jerry Cruncher himself, who modestly concealed

his spiky head from the observation of Tellson’s, in the further

corner of the mourning coach.

The officiating undertakers made some protest against these

changes in the ceremonies; but, the river being alarmingly near,

and several voices remarking on the efficacy of cold immersion in

bringing refractory members of the profession to reason, the

protest was faint and brief. The remodelled procession started,

with a chimney-sweep driving the hearseadvised by the regular

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driver, who was perched beside him, under close inspection, for

the purposeand with a pie-man, also attended by his cabinet

minister, driving the mourning coach. A bear-leader, a popular

street character of the time, was impressed as an additional

ornament, before the cavalcade had gone far down the Strand;

and his bear, who was black and very mangy, gave quite an

Undertaking air to that part of the procession in which he walked.

Thus, with beer-drinking, pipe-smoking, song-roaring, and

infinite caricaturing of woe, the disorderly procession went its

way, recruiting at every step, and all the shops shutting up before

it. Its destination was the old church of Saint Pancras, far off in

the fields. It got there in course of time; insisted on pouring into

the burial-ground; finally, accomplished the interment of the

deceased Roger Cly in its own way, and highly to its own

satisfaction.

The dead man disposed of, and the crowd being under the

necessity of providing some other entertainment for itself, another

brighter genius (or perhaps the same) conceived the humour of

impeaching casual passers-by, as Old Bailey spies, and wreaking

vengeance on them. Chase was given to some scores of inoffensive

persons who had never been near the Old Bailey in their lives, in

the realisation of this fancy, and they were roughly hustled and

maltreated. The transition to the sport of window-breaking, and

thence to the plundering of public-houses, was easy and natural.

At last, after several hours, when sundry summer-houses had been