CHAPTER XVII.
"Here fashion and folly still go hand in hand, With the Blades of the East, and the Bucks of the Strand; The Bloods of the Park, and paraders so gay, Who are lounging in Bond Street the most of the day-- Who are foremost in all that is formed for delight, At greeking, or wenching, or drinking all night; For London is circled with unceasing joys: Then, East, West, North and South, let us hunt them, my boys." ~258~~ THE entrance to the house had attracted Tallyho's admiration as they proceeded; but the taste and elegance of the Coffee-room, fitted up with brilliant chandeliers, and presenting amidst a blaze of splendour every comfort and accommodation for its visitors, struck him with surprise; in which however he was not suffered to remain long, for Merrywell and Mortimer had laid their plans with some degree of depth and determination to carry into execution the proposed ramble of the evening, and had ordered a private room for the party; besides which, they had invited a friend to join them, who was introduced to Tom and Bob, under the title of Frank Harry.

Frank Harry was a humorous sort of fellow, who could tell a tough story, sing a merry song, and was up to snuff, though he frequently got snuffy, singing, "The bottle's the Sun of our table, His beams are rosy wine: We, planets never are able Without his beams to shine.
Let mirth and glee abound, You'll soon grow bright With borrow'd light, And shine as he goes round." He was also a bit of a dabbler at Poetry, a writer of Songs, Epigrams, Epitaphs, &c.; and having been a long resident in the East, was thought to be a very useful guide on such an excursion, and proved himself a very ~259~~ pleasant sort of companion: he had a dawning pleasantry in his countenance, eradiated by an eye of vivacity, which seemed to indicate there was nothing which gave him so much gratification as a mirth-moving jest.
"What spirits were his, what wit and what whim, Now cracking a joke, and now breaking a limb." Give him but food for laughter, and he would almost consider himself furnished with food and raiment.

There was however a pedantic manner with him at times; an affectation of the clerical in his dress, which, upon the whole, did not appear to be of the newest fashion, or improved by wearing; yet he would not barter one wakeful jest for a hundred sleepy sermons, or one laugh for a thousand sighs.

If he ever sigh'd at all, it was because he had been serious where he might have laugh'd; if he had ever wept, it was because mankind had not laugh'd more and mourn'd less.

He appeared almost to be made up of contrarieties, turning at times the most serious subjects into ridicule, and moralizing upon the most ludicrous occurrences of life, never failing to conclude his observations with some quaint or witty sentiment to excite risibility; seeming at the same time to say, "How I love to laugh; Never was a weeper; Care's a silly calf, Joy's my casket keeper." During dinner time he kept the table in a roar of laughter, by declaring it was his opinion there was a kind of puppyism in pigs that they should wear tails--calling a great coat, a spencer folio edition with tail-pieces--Hercules, a man-midwife in a small way of business, because he had but twelve labours--assured them he had seen a woman that morning who had swallowed an almanac, which he explained by adding, that her features were so carbuncled, that the red lettered days were visible on her face--that Horace ran away from the battle of Philippi, merely to prove that he was no lame poet--he described Critics as the door-porters to the Temple of Fame, whose business was to see that no persons slipped in with holes in their stockings, or paste buckles for diamond ones, but was much in doubt whether they always performed their duty honestly--he called the Sun the _Yellow-hair'd Laddie_ ~260~~ -- and the Prince of Darkness, the _Black Prince_--ask'd what was the difference between a sigh-heaver and a coal-heaver; but obtaining no answer, I will tell you, said he--The coal-heaver has a load at his back, which he can carry--but a sigh-heaver has one at his heart, which he can not carry.