It then lifted up its head, to
notice that the bereaved Jasper was still ever devoted to discovery
and revenge; and then dozed off again. This was the condition of
matters, all round, at the period to which the present history has
now attained.
The Cathedral doors have closed for the night; and the Choir-
master, on a short leave of absence for two or three services, sets
his face towards London. He travels thither by the means by which
Rosa travelled, and arrives, as Rosa arrived, on a hot, dusty
evening.
His travelling baggage is easily carried in his hand, and he
repairs with it on foot, to a hybrid hotel in a little square
behind Aldersgate Street, near the General Post Office. It is
hotel, boarding-house, or lodging-house, at its visitor's option.
It announces itself, in the new Railway Advertisers, as a novel
enterprise, timidly beginning to spring up. It bashfully, almost
apologetically, gives the traveller to understand that it does not
expect him, on the good old constitutional hotel plan, to order a
pint of sweet blacking for his drinking, and throw it away; but
insinuates that he may have his boots blacked instead of his
stomach, and maybe also have bed, breakfast, attendance, and a
porter up all night, for a certain fixed charge. From these and
similar premises, many true Britons in the lowest spirits deduce
that the times are levelling times, except in the article of high
roads, of which there will shortly be not one in England.
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