All these were crowding round No.

5, as ordered or advertised for by Mr.
Tupper: of course soon explained away, and rejected, to a general indignation at the hoaxers.

Now, as I had my suspicions, I sat unseen at the front drawing-room window, and watched: and as more than once I had noticed P.and his friends pass down the street on the opposite side, I taxed them with their exploit on the Monday; and I rather think it cost them not a trifling sum to satisfy that crowd of disappointed tradesmen.
Happily such practical joking is now long since (or ought to be) a social outrage of the past; Hook's being first had the grace of original humour,--but imitations are dull repetition, not to be excused.

I only once met Theodore Hook, and that was in his decadence; he looked puffy and only semi-sober; but I recollect with how much deference and expectation the "livener-up" was eagerly surrounded, and how sillily the dupes laughed at every word he uttered, whether humorous or not.
* * * * * For another last memory of No.

5, in the dining-room whereof Lord Sandwich, who had once lived there, is said to have invented "sandwiches," I will record this.
In those days of long ago, how well I remember our next-door neighbour, old Lady Cork, "The Dowager-Countess of Cork and Orrery," as her door-plate proclaimed, some of whose peculiarities I may mention without offence, as they were notorious and (the physicians judged) innocent and venial.