Suffice it to say, as a matter of history, that Mr.Hayes did actually drink seven bottles of mountain-wine; and that Mr.Thomas Billings went to the "Braund's Head," in Bond Street, and purchased another, which Hayes likewise drank.
"That'll do," said Mr.Wood to young Billings; and they led Hayes up to bed, whither, in truth, he was unable to walk himself.
***** Mrs.Springatt, the lodger, came down to ask what the noise was.

"'Tis only Tom Billings making merry with some friends from the country," answered Mrs.Hayes; whereupon Springatt retired, and the house was quiet.
***** Some scuffling and stamping was heard about eleven o'clock.
***** After they had seen Mr.Hayes to bed, Billings remembered that he had a parcel to carry to some person in the neighbourhood of the Strand; and, as the night was remarkably fine, he and Mr.Wood agreed to walk together, and set forth accordingly.
(Here follows a description of the THAMES AT MIDNIGHT, in a fine historical style; with an account of Lambeth, Westminster, the Savoy, Baynard's Castle, Arundel House, the Temple; of Old London Bridge, with its twenty arches, "on which be houses builded, so that it seemeth rather a continuall street than a bridge;"-- of Bankside, and the "Globe" and the "Fortune" Theatres; of the ferries across the river, and of the pirates who infest the same--namely, tinklermen, petermen, hebbermen, trawlermen; of the fleet of barges that lay at the Savoy steps; and of the long lines of slim wherries sleeping on the river banks and basking and shining in the moonbeams.

A combat on the river is described, that takes place between the crews of a tinklerman's boat and the water-bailiffs.

Shouting his war-cry, "St.Mary Overy a la rescousse!" the water-bailiff sprung at the throat of the tinklerman captain.

The crews of both vessels, as if aware that the struggle of their chiefs would decide the contest, ceased hostilities, and awaited on their respective poops the issue of the death-shock.