we had not sauntered long in these fields when the dusky evening closed in, and the darkness gradually thickened.  “How black those trees are,” said Shelley, stopping short, and pointing to a row of elms; “it is so dark the trees might well be houses, and the turf, pavement,—­the eye would sustain no loss; it is useless therefore to remain here, let us return.”  He proposed tea at his hotel, I assented; and hastily buttoning his coat, he seized my arm, and set off at his great pace, striding with bent knees over the fields and through the narrow streets.  We were crossing the New Road, when he said shortly, “I must call for a moment, but it will not be out of the way at all,” and then dragged me suddenly towards the left.  I inquired whither we were bound, and, I believe, I suggested the postponement of the intended call till the morrow.  He answered, it was not at all out of our way.  I was hurried along rapidly towards the left; we soon fell into an animated discussion respecting the nature of the virtue of the Romans, which in some measure beguiled the weary way.  Whilst he was talking with much vehemence and a total disregard of the people who thronged the streets, he suddenly wheeled about and pushed me through a narrow door; to my infinite surprise I found myself in a pawnbroker’s shop!  It was in the neighbourhood of Newgate Street; for he had no idea whatever in practice either of time or space, nor did he in any degree regard method in the conduct of business.  There were several women in the shop in brown and grey cloaks with squalling children:  some of them were attempting to persuade the children to be quiet, or at least, to scream with moderation; the others were enlarging upon and pointing out the beauties of certain coarse and dirty sheets that lay before them to a man on the other side of the counter.  I bore this substitute for our proposed tea some minutes with tolerable patience, but as the call did not promise to terminate speedily, I said to Shelley, in a whisper, “Is not this almost as bad as the Roman virtue?” Upon this he approached the pawnbroker:  it was long before he could obtain a hearing, and he did not find civility.  The man was unwilling to part with a valuable pledge so soon, or perhaps he hoped to retain it eventually; or it might be, that the obliquity of his nature disqualified him for respectful behaviour.  A pawnbroker is frequently an important witness in criminal proceedings:  it has happened to me, therefore, afterwards to see many specimens of this kind of banker; they sometimes appeared not less respectable than other tradesmen, and sometimes I have been forcibly reminded of the first I ever met with, by an equally ill conditioned fellow.  I was so little pleased with the introduction, that I stood aloof in the shop, and did not hear what passed between him and Shelley.  On our way to Covent-Garden, I expressed my surprise and dissatisfaction at our strange visit, and I learned that when he came to London before, in the course