Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi. Grimaldi Joseph

of it to Mr. Grimaldi, who looked very cold. After a great deal of blushing and giggling, the young lady put her left arm through the left arm of the coat, and Grimaldi put his right arm through the right arm of the coat, to the great admiration of the whole party, and after the manner in which they show the giants' coats at the fairs. They sat in this way during the whole voyage, and Grimaldi always declared that it was a very comfortable way of travelling, as no doubt it is.

      "Laugh away!" he said, as the party gave vent to their delight in bursts of merriment. "If we had only something here to warm us internally as well as the great-coat does externally, we would laugh all night."

      "What should you recommend for that purpose?" asked the neighbour.

      "Brandy," said the friend.

      "Then," rejoined the neighbour, "if you were a harlequin, instead of a clown, you could not have conjured it up quicker." And with these words, the neighbour, who was a plump, red-faced, merry fellow, held up with both hands a large heavy stone bottle, with an inverted drinking-horn resting on the bung; and having laughed very much at his own forethought, he set the stone bottle down, and sat himself on the top of it.

      It was the only thing wanting to complete the mirth of the party, and very merry they were. It was a fine moonlight night, cold, but healthy and fresh, and it passed pleasantly and quickly away. The day had broken before they reached Billingsgate-stairs; the stone-bottle was empty, the neighbour asleep, Grimaldi and the young lady buttoned up in the great-coat, and the wife and daughter very jocose and good-humoured.

      Here they parted: the neighbour's family went home in a hackney-coach, and Grimaldi, bidding them good-bye, walked away to Gracechurch-street, not forgetting to thank the young lady for her humanity and compassion.

      He had occasion to call at a coach-office in Gracechurch-street; but finding that it was not yet open (for it was very early), and not feeling at all fatigued by his journey, he determined to walk about the city for a couple of hours or so, and then to return to the coach-office. By so doing, he would pass away the time till the office opened, gain an opportunity of looking about him in that part of London, to which he was quite a stranger, and avoid disturbing the family at home until a more seasonable hour. So he made up his mind to walk the two hours away, and turned back for that purpose.