He says he likes it very much though, and I am afraid he does, for he lies on his back on the floor, and sings comic songs all day!' Shall we add, that our heart had not deceived us and that the comic singer was no other than our eagerly-sought friend, the red cab-driver?
We have never seen him since, but we have strong reason to suspect that this noble individual was a distant relative of a waterman of our acquaintance, who, on one occasion, when we were passing the coach-stand over which he presides, after standing very quietly to see a tall man struggle into a cab, ran up very briskly when it was all over (as his brethren invariably do), and, touching his hat, asked, as a matter of course, for 'a copper for the waterman.' Now, the fare was by no means a handsome man; and, waxing very indignant at the demand, he replied--'Money! What for?
Coming up and looking at me, I suppose!'-- 'Vell, sir,' rejoined the waterman, with a smile of immovable complacency, '_that's_ worth twopence.' The identical waterman afterwards attained a very prominent station in society; and as we know something of his life, and have often thought of telling what we _do_ know, perhaps we shall never have a better opportunity than the present.
Mr.William Barker, then, for that was the gentleman's name, Mr.William Barker was born--but why need we relate where Mr.William Barker was born, or when?
Why scrutinise the entries in parochial ledgers, or seek to penetrate the Lucinian mysteries of lying-in hospitals?
Mr.William Barker _was_ born, or he had never been.

There is a son--there was a father.

There is an effect--there was a cause.

Surely this is sufficient information for the most Fatima-like curiosity; and, if it be not, we regret our inability to supply any further evidence on the point.
Can there be a more satisfactory, or more strictly parliamentary course?
Impossible.
We at once avow a similar inability to record at what precise period, or by what particular process, this gentleman's patronymic, of William Barker, became corrupted into 'Bill Boorker.' Mr.Barker acquired a high standing, and no inconsiderable reputation, among the members of that profession to which he more peculiarly devoted his energies; and to them he was generally known, either by the familiar appellation of 'Bill Boorker,' or the flattering designation of 'Aggerawatin Bill,' the latter being a playful and expressive _sobriquet_, illustrative of Mr.Barker's great talent in 'aggerawatin' and rendering wild such subjects of her Majesty as are conveyed from place to place, through the instrumentality of omnibuses.

Of the early life of Mr.Barker little is known, and even that little is involved in considerable doubt and obscurity.