"O, you went there?" said the clerk. "Wot did you do? Bet you had a B.-and-S.!"
"Well, you see, it was just as the old boy said--like the cut of a whip," said Herrick. "The one minute I was here on the beach at three in the morning, the next I was in front of the Golden Cross at midday. At first I was dazzled, and covered my eyes, and there didn't seem the smallest change; the roar of the Strand and the roar of the reef were like the same: hark to it now, and you can hear the cabs and 'buses rolling and the streets resound! And then at last I could look about, and there was the old place, and no mistake! With the statues in the square, and St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, and the bobbies, and the sparrows, and the hacks; and I can't tell you what I felt like. I felt like crying, I believe, or dancing, or jumping clean over the Nelson Column. I was like a fellow caught up out of Hell and flung down into the dandiest part of Heaven. Then I spotted for a hansom with a spanking horse. 'A shilling for yourself if you're there in twenty minutes!' said I to the jarvey. He went a good pace, though of course it was a trifle to the carpet; and in nineteen minutes and a half I was at the door."
"O, a house I know of," returned Herrick.
"Bet it was a public-house!" cried the clerk,--only these were not his words. "And w'y didn't you take the carpet there instead of trundling in a growler?"
"I didn't want to startle a quiet street," said the narrator. "Bad form. And besides, it was a hansom."
"Well, and what did you do next?" inquired the captain.
"That's about it," said the other, chewing a grass.
"Well, I think you are about the poorest 'and at a yarn!" cried the clerk. "Crikey, it's like 'Ministering Children!' I can tell you there would be more beer and skittles about my little jaunt. I would go and have a B.-and-S. for luck. Then I would get a big ulster with astrakhan fur, and take my cane and do the la-de-da down Piccadilly. Then I would go to a slap-up restaurant, and have green peas, and a bottle of fizz, and a chump chop--O! and I forgot, I'd 'ave some devilled whitebait first--and green gooseberry tart, and 'ot coffee, and some of that form of vice in big bottles with a seal--Benedictine--that's the bloomin' nyme! Then I'd drop into a theatre, and pal on with some chappies, and do the dancing rooms and bars, and that, and wouldn't go 'ome till morning, till daylight doth appear. And the next day I'd have water-cresses, 'am, muffin, and fresh butter; wouldn't I just, O my!"