James Greenwood

“ A gentleman with whom I am acquainted, and whose charitable mission it is to look after the spiritual welfare of the heathen court and alley dwellers of one of the worst parts of the metropolis, so long ago as four or five years, imparted to me the interesting fact that he reckoned, amongst his flock of black sheep, one whose fleece, in bygone times, was, at least from a worldly aspect, the finest and snowiest imaginable. ”

“ Mr. Dealer, however, was not at all offended by the ungracious rejoinder to his civil observation. On the contrary, he winked at me an unmistakable injunction to remember what he had said about pluck, and blood, and breeding.
"Draw it mild, my beauty," he remarked; "if there isn't anything the matter with you, your safest place will be on that tub you've just got off of. Allow me, Lady Blank."
By "allowing him" he meant permitting him to lift her up on to the beer barrel again, and as he did so, he discovered the cause of her ladyship's embarrassment. She was without her shoes. ”

“ ALTHOUGH in and about the great city, things, marvellous and previously unheard of, are continually happening, it cannot be regarded but as an uncommon circumstance when a viscountess is discovered seated on a beer barrel before the bar of a low pothouse in Leather Lane, partaking of a baked potato, hot from the can of a peripatetic vendor of that nourishing vegetable. ”

“ A man naturally takes a pride in such things, especially when he's got a fancy that way. I have. There's nothing like blood, in my opinion. You get it in horses, and it lasts 'em until they come down to a night cab, and haven't got a leg to stand on or an eye to see out of; and you gets it in dogs, and it lasts 'em while they've got a tooth in their head; and you get it in women. She - Lady Blank, I mean - hasn't got a tooth in her head; but you should see her sometimes when I stir her up, by way of amusement, and chaff her about them old times. My eyes! ”

“ When she is getting drunk - a habit to which I am sorry to have to state she is by no means uncommonly addicted - she is frequently seen to raise her gin glass, and to mutter something about "dear old times;" and when, with perseverance worthy of a better cause, she has succeeded in reducing herself to a condition of perfect intoxication, she imperiously resents all undue familiarity on the part of the squalid crew ordinarily her bosom friends and cronies, and will reply to no question unless she is addressed as "your ladyship." ”

“ Dealer, pityingly. "Dollartery is worshipping hidols. It's my belief that the Duchess makes a hidol of that little ivory painting. I shouldn't be a bit surprised," he continued, "to find out that when she's all alone in that room, she locks the door and forrages out that blessed pictur, and reglar worships it, just like them foreign heathens do to idols; there ain't nothing in the world she thinks so much of. ”

“ As I was informed before I had the felicity of being introduced to her ladyship in person, her intimates, indeed all who know her, have the most perfect belief in her pretensions, and drink good luck to Lady Blank in simple sincerity. When her funds are gone they will lend their aristocratic acquaintance a few halfpence to "keep the game alive," relying on the sufficient security of her word of honour for repayment. Occasionally, at extremely hard-up times, they oblige her ladyship by carrying her boots or her shawl to the pawnbroker's ”

“ Since, however, it is not impossible that there may be certain persons who would be rendered uneasy were they made aware that this one brilliant star, now fallen so low, is still in the land of the living, it may be as well to call her Lady Blank. ”

“ And as he spoke he gave the corner of the shawl a tug, and down dropped her ladyship's muddy boots, which were there concealed.
"She wanted to leave 'em over the bar for a quartern of rum, but I wouldn't take 'em of her," remarked the spruce barmaid coming forward, her ire excited less, I am afraid, by the proffered pawn than by the fact of her ladyship having by accident left some of the skin of her baked potato in the rum measure. "She's a disgrace to her sex! she's worse than the pigs in the street!" said the barmaid. ”

“ When there hasn't been so much as a half-quartern amiss with her, sir. I've heard her tell that same story twenty times if once, and she never deviates so much as a single sinnable in telling it. She's as much Lady B., wot's left of her, as she was when out-and-out swells ruined themselves a buying diamonds for her ”

“ Suddenly, altering his mind respecting her ladyship's boots, he cast off the one he had already adjusted, and put them both in the pocket of his jacket.
"When once she sets her mind on doing a thing, she'll do it, if she can anyhow manage it, especially when she's put out, as she is now," he remarked to me confidentially. "If I was to turn my back on her for only ten minutes she'd conwert 'em into rum, so I think I'd better see her safe home."
Then, turning to the shameful old person on the beer barrel, he said cheerfully:-
"Drink up your liquor and hop down, old beauty ”