I cannot walk from Ludgate Circus to the Griffin without meeting him. I see him stalking into Edwards', with solemn visage and weighty stride, for the momentous function of dinner. I see him with beaming countenance and abdominal "Haw, haw!" of full content, nimbly stepping out of Bower's, his "percentage restored" and his soul "satisfied in Nature." I see him striding gloomily with downcast eyes, hands in fob, and bludgeon under his arm, oblivious of the traffic and the world, wrestling in desperate conflict with the reluctant Muses, for a happy phrase or eccentric rhyme.
His Gargantuan figure is never absent from _my_ Fleet Street. Were he to slap me on the back, I should say "Hello, Ned," as naturally as if he had never left us.
Ah me! how we get carried away from those by whose side we would have chosen to fight!
Happily, there is no settled sadness in the Bounder's ghost.
One of the earliest recollections I have of him is connected with a _tête-à-tête_ dinner (the tater-tart came many years after) in one of the Fleet Street taverns.
We had finished our ample meal, when in came my old friend Tom Sutton, of the _Athletic News_, and seeing nothing but empty plates before us, cheerily invited us to dine.
I was about to explain the situation, when the Bounder, to warn me off, winking sideways, affably answered, "All right, old chap. I'll have a steak and a tankard of stout."
This he consumed, together with several accessories and supplements pressed upon his easy acquiescence by our genial host.
When the banquet's o'er, The dreadful reckoning, and men smile no more.
Tom Sutton looked, and looked again, pulled his moustache, and called the waiter.
"I say," he protested, "there's a mistake here. We haven't had all this."
"Mistake, sir?" said the waiter. "No, dere vas no mistake, sir; I haf charge for dat gentleman all his two dinner. Dat gentleman always have two dinner sometimes. No mistake."
But at that moment Tom looked across the table, saw the Bounder's huge frame shaking with inward chuckles, which rose to a roar as their eyes met, and then he paid and said no more.
The Bounder was of course the Mentor who introduced me to Bower's. I was "up" for a day, and of course we "signified the same in the usual manner."