 ingenuity stick upon it. Among the first of these
volunteers was Jerry Cruncher himself, who modestly concealed his spiky head
from the observation of Tellson's, in the further corner of the mourning coach.
    The officiating undertakers made some protest against these changes in the
ceremonies; but, the river being alarmingly near, and several voices remarking
on the efficacy of cold immersion in bringing refractory members of the
profession to reason, the protest was faint and brief. The remodelled procession
started, with a chimney-sweep driving the hearse - advised by the regular
driver, who was perched beside him, under close inspection, for the purpose -
and with a pieman, also attended by his cabinet minister, driving the mourning
coach. A bear-leader, a popular street character of the time, was impressed as
an additional ornament, before the cavalcade had gone far down the Strand; and
his bear, who was black and very mangy, gave quite an Undertaking air to that
part of the procession in which he walked.
    Thus, with beer-drinking, pipe-smoking, song-roaring, and infinite
caricaturing of woe, the disorderly procession went its way, recruiting at every
step, and all the shops shutting up before it. Its destination was the old
church of Saint Pancras, far off in the fields. It got there in course of time;
insisted on pouring into the burial-ground; finally, accomplished the interment
of the deceased Roger Cly in its own way, and highly to its own satisfaction.
    The dead man disposed of, and the crowd being under the necessity of
providing some other entertainment for itself, another brighter genius (or
perhaps the same) conceived the humour of impeaching casual passers-by, as Old
Bailey spies, and wreaking vengeance on them. Chase was given to some scores of
inoffensive persons who had never been near the Old Bailey in their lives, in
the realisation of this fancy, and they were roughly hustled and maltreated. The
transition to the sport of window-breaking, and thence to the plundering of
public-houses, was easy and natural. At last, after several hours, when sundry
summer-houses had been pulled down, and some area-railings had been torn up, to
arm the more belligerent spirits, a rumour got about that the Guards were
coming. Before this rumour, the crowd gradually melted away, and perhaps the
Guards came, and perhaps they never came, and this was the usual progress of a
mob.
    Mr. Cruncher did not assist at the closing sports, but had remained behind
in the churchyard, to
