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The Prose Works of Thomas Hood; With Two Hundred and Fifty Engravings on Wood
The Prose Works of Thomas Hood With Two Hundred and Fifty Engravings on Wood Author:Thomas Hood General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1873 Original Publisher: G. P. Putnam's sons Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you... more » can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: FANCY PORTBA1T: -- MR. IIOBLEK. MILLER REDIVIVUS. " He is become already a very promising miller." Bell's Life In Losdos. I Was walking very leisurely one evening down Cripple- gate, when I overtook -- who could help overtaking him ? -- a lame, elderly gentleman, who, by the nature of his gait, appeared to represent the ward. Like certain lots at auctions, he seemed always going, but never gone : it was that kind of march that, from its slowness, is emphatically called halting. Gout, in fact, had got him into a sad hobble, and, like terror, made his flesh creep. There was, notwithstanding, a lurking humorousness in his face, in spite of pace, that reminded you of Quick or Listou inOld Rapid. You saw lhat lie was notTslow, at least, nt n quirk or quip, -- not backward at repartee, -- not behindlui. I with his jest, -- in short, that he was a great wit, though ho could not jump. There iwas something, besides, in his physiognomy, as well as his dress and figure, that strongly indicated his locality. He was palpably a dweller, if not a native, of that clime distinguished equally by " the rage of the vulture and the love of the turtle," -- the good old City of London. But an accident soon confirmed my surmises. In plucking out his handkerchief from one of his capacious coat-pockets, the bandana tumbled out with it a large roll of manuscript; and as he proceeded a good hundred yards befrre he discovered the loss, I had ample time before he struggled back, in his crawly common pace, to the spot, to give the paper a hasty perusal, and even to make a few i-andom...« less