CHAPTER V.

DISCIPLINE OF SOEEOW.
1758—1759.

1758 IT was four days after the rejection at Surgeons' Hall, the

mso Christmas day of 1758, when, to the ordinary filth and noise

of number twelve in Green Arbour1 Court, there was added

an unusual lamentation and sorrow. An incident had

occurred, of which, painful as were the consequences

involved in it, the precise details can but be surmised and

guessed at, and must be received with that allowance, though

•doubtless in the main correct. It would appear that the

keeper of this wretched lodging had been suddenly dragged

by bailiffs from his home on the previous night, and his

wife, with loud wailings, now sought the room of her poorer

lodger. He was in debt to the unfortunate couple, who, for

the amusement of their cllildren by his flute, had been kind

to him according to their miserable means : and it was the

woman's sobbing petition that he should try to help them.

There was but one way; and in the hope, through Hamilton

or Griffiths, to be able still to meet the tailor's debt, the gay

suit in which he went to Surgeons' Hall, and in which he

was dressed for his doleful holiday, appears to have been

put off and carried to the pawnbroker's. Nor had a weekde and become impalpable before him. Steadily, then, if