CHAPTER XXVIII.
"Through coaches, drays, choked turnpikes, and a whirl Of wheels, and roar of voices, and confusion, Here taverns wooing to a pint of 'purl,' There mails fast flying off, like a delusion.
"Through this, and much, and more, is the approach Of travellers to mighty Babylon; Whether they come by horse, or chair, or coach, With slight exceptions, all the ways seem one." BYRON.
When Newton Forster and his father arrived at London, they put up at an obscure inn in the Borough.

The next day, Newton set off to discover the residence of his uncle.

The people of the inn had recommended him to apply to some stationer or bookseller, who would allow him to look over a red-book; and, in compliance with these instructions, Newton stopped at a shop in Fleet-street, on the doors of which was written in large gilt letters--"Law Bookseller." The young men in the shop were very civil and obliging, and, without referring to the "Guide," immediately told him the residence of a man so well known as his uncle, and Newton hastened in the direction pointed out.
It was one of those melancholy days in which London wears the appearance of a huge scavenger's cart.

A lurid fog and mizzling rain, which had been incessant for the previous twenty-four hours; sloppy pavements, and kennels down which the muddy torrents hastened to precipitate themselves into the sewers below; armies of umbrellas, as far as the eye could reach, now rising, now lowering, to avoid collision; hackney-coaches in active sloth, their miserable cattle plodding along with their backs arched and heads and tails drooping like barndoor fowls crouching under the cataract of a gutter; clacking of pattens and pestering of sweepers; not a smile upon the countenance of one individual of the multitude which passed him;--all appeared anxiety, bustle, and selfishness.

Newton was not sorry when he turned down the narrow court which had been indicated to him, and, disengaged from the throng of men, commenced a more rapid course.