the long narrow alleys of old-clothes stalls, decked with washed-out gowns and brown stays, and yellow petticoats and limp bonnets, were gone; the old-boots stalls, bright with the highly-polished shoe, were nowhere visible; nor the black hardware, nor the white wicker-baskets, nor the dangling hairy brooms, nor the glass cases glittering with showy jewellery. The booth-like cook-shops were shut up, and not a boy was to be seen within them enjoying his cheap basin of steaming soup or plate of smoking pie; and the sheets of tripe, like bundles of shammy leather, and the cow-heels, white and soddened, like washerwomen's hands, had disappeared from the stalls.
In Victoria Market the oranges were no longer to be seen piled up in pyramids, and glittering like balls of gold against their white-papered shelves. Not a sound of music was to be heard in any of the harmonic taverns. The piano of "The Hen And Chickens" was hushed. The fiddle and violoncello sounded not in "The Cotton Tree." At Ben Lang's the lights were all out, and the galleries empty—not a seriously-comic song, nor comically-serious ditty disturbed the silence of the "Saloon."
The shutters of the Exchange, too, were closed—none sat at the tables, or stood at the desks scanning the papers. At Milner's, the patent iron safe that, laden with gold, had stood the attack of twenty desperate robbers, was hidden for a time by the shutters. Barton the stationer had eloped to London with his Love. Nathaniel Gould and his brother from London had both returned to the metropolis to see the Exhibition, and his mother. Binyons and Hunter had given over desiccating their coffee, and had gone to air themselves instead, in the metropolis. At Crowther's Hotel, the pretty barmaid was no longer to be seen, for "The Angel" had retired to London. At the Commercial Dining Rooms, Bell's joints had ceased to be hot from twelve till three, for he, like the rest, had gone, legs and shoulders and all, to the Great Exhibition; while Mrs. Ja. Stewart, ("professed cook,") no longer recommended those gentlemen who wanted a relish to try her chops. Mrs. Lalor, having exhausted "her winter supply of fancy shirts, braces, cravats, &c.," had availed herself of the opportunity of seeing the Exhibition to provide herself with a summer stock. Mr. Albert, the dentist, of George-street, whose "artificial teeth, he assures us, are such perfect imitations of nature, that it is confidently predicted they will speedily supersede every other kind," had started for the metropolis, leaving his incorrodible teeth behind him; and J. Casper, the tailor, of Market-street, having "invented a cloth with two distinct faces, which may be worn on either side, and suitable for trowsers," as well as coats and vests, had turned his coat like the very best "double-faced," and gone up in a pair of his own patent pantaloons, with the intention of using the outsides for week days, and the insides for Sundays. At the City Mourning Establishment, the young ladies of the shop had given over sorrowing for the deceased friends of their customers, and, substituting lively pink glacés for their sombre bombazins, had suddenly changed, like lobsters, from black to red, and gone up with the
