Some of the miserable inhabitants of this quarter are night-birds, who seldom leave their beds during the day, except to refresh themselves with a drop of Old Tom; but as the evening approaches, their business commences, when you will see them decked out like fine ladies, for there are _coves of cases_,{1} and others in the vicinity of the Theatres, who live by letting out dresses for the evening, where they may be accommodated from a camesa{2} to a richly embroidered full-dress court suit, under the care of spies, who are upon the look-out that they don't brush off with the stock.

Others, again, are boarded and lodged by the owners of houses of ill-fame, kept as dirty and as ragged as beggars all day, but who, "Dress'd out at night, cut a figure." It however not unfrequently happens to those unhappy Girls who have not been successful in their pursuits, and do not bring home with them the wages of their prostitution, that they are sent to bed without supper, and sometimes get a good beating into the bargain; besides which, the Mistress of the house takes care to search them immediately after they are left by their gallants, by which means they are deprived of every shilling." Approaching the City, they espied a crowd of persons assembled together round the door of Money the perfumer.

Upon inquiring, a species of depreciation was exposed, which had not yet come under their view.
It appeared that a note, purporting to come from a gentleman at the Tavistock Hotel, desiring Mr.Money to wait on him to take measure of his cranium for a fashionable peruke, had drawn him from home, and that during his absence, a lad, in breathless haste, as if dispatched by the principal, entered the shop, stating that Sir.

Money wanted a wig which was in the window, with some combs and hair-brushes, for the Gentleman's inspection, and also a pot of his Circassian cream.

The bait took, the articles 1 Coves of cases--Keepers of houses of ill fame.
2 Camesa--A shirt or shift.
~371~~ were packed up, and the wily cheat had made good his retreat before the return of the coiffeur, who was not pleased with being seduced from his home by a hoaxing letter, and less satisfied to find that his property was diminished in his absence by the successful artifices of a designing villain.