=Blow a Cloud.=--Smoke a pipe. Cock a Broseley.
=Blue Blazes.=--Spirituous liquors in general, GIN in particular.
=Blue Ruin.=--Gin, called _blue_ from its tint, and _ruin_ from its effects. In the words of Otway most gin drinkers are “in love and pleased with _ruin_!”
=Blunt.=--Cash, or money of any value, or in any quantity. Lots of _blunt_, plenty of money--“Thou dear delightful evil.”
=Bodkin.=--William Bodkin, Esq., or as he was familiarly termed _Billy Bodkin_, was originally a painstaking _Broker_ and _Auctioneer_ at Islington, he was the first Hon. Sec. to the Mendicity Society, which office it was said he found more lucrative. So neglected _knocking down_, for the sake of _taking-up_, giving the vagrants their quietus “_With a bare Bodkin_.”--For further particulars about this _sharp_ Bodkin _see_ Billy Waters.
=Bolt.=--Throat, _Sluice your bolt_--Drink.
=Bone-setter.=--A hackney-coach, also a hard trotting horse.
=Booked.=--The time fixed when a thief is ripe for the gallows, or when any one is likely to die from some mortal disease. “He’s _booked_ for a ride in a Government omnibus, _i.e._, prison van.” “You are _booked_ for a ride to Gravesend.” Secured, bespoke, in for it, dished!
=Booze.=--Liquor, “To drink.” “_Rum booze_,” good drink.
=Boozey.=--Drunk. Man being reasonable must get drunk.--_Byron._
=Bosh.=--A fiddle. To _fake_ a _bosh_, to play the fiddle; _Boshmen_, fiddlers, or musicians in general.
=Bought.=--I have _bought_ that and no mistake, _i.e._, paid too much for it. _Bought_ and _sold_: taken in and done for.--It would make a man as mad as a buck, to be so bought and sold.--_Shakespeare._
=Bouncing Chit.=--A bottle, from the explosion in drawing the cork.
=Boxed.=--Locked up.--Cabin’d, cribb’d, and confined.
=Boxing a Charley.=--Upsetting a watchman in his box.
=Box of Dominoes or Ivories.=--The mouth, containing the teeth.
=Box of Minutes.=--A watch.--Watches you know, were made to go.
=Brads.=--Half-pence, also money in general.--Shell out the _brads_ Jack.
=Brass.=--Money, also impudence,--“A man who carries plenty of _brass_ in his face will never lack gold in his pocket.”
=Breaking up of the Spell.=--The breaking up of a party of long sitting: the nightly termination of performance at the theatres, which is regularly attended by pickpockets, who exercise their vocation about the doors and avenues leading thereto.