And yet many people would have thought it impossible for our friendship to have lasted a week—­for in many respects no two people could be more dissimilar.  He was an Irishman—­I, an Englishman;—­he, fiery, enthusiastic, and open-hearted; I, neither fiery, enthusiastic, nor open-hearted;—­he, fond of pleasure and dissipation; I, of study and reflection.  Yet it is of such dissimilar elements that the most lasting friendships are formed:  we do not like counterparts of ourselves.  ’Two great talkers will not travel far together,’ is a Spanish saying; I will add, ‘Nor two silent people’; we naturally love our opposites.

So Francis Ardry came to see me, and right glad I was to see him, for I had just flung my books and papers aside, and was wishing for a little social converse; and when we had conversed for some little time together, Francis Ardry proposed that we should go to the play to see Kean; so we went to the play, and saw—­not Kean, who at that time was ashamed to show himself, but—­a man who was not ashamed to show himself, and who people said was a much better man than Kean—­as I have no doubt he was—­though whether he was a better actor I cannot say, for I never saw Kean.

Two or three evenings after Francis Ardry came to see me again, and again we went out together, and Francis Ardry took me to—­shall I say?—­why not?—­a gaming-house, where I saw people playing, and where I saw Francis Ardry play and lose five guineas, and where I lost nothing, because I did not play, though I felt somewhat inclined; for a man with a white hat and a sparkling eye held up a box which contained something which rattled, and asked me to fling the bones.  ’There is nothing like flinging the bones!’ said he, and then I thought I should like to know what kind of thing flinging the bones was; I, however, restrained myself.  ’There is nothing like flinging the bones!’ shouted the man, as my friend and myself left the room.

Long life and prosperity to Francis Ardry! but for him I should not have obtained knowledge which I did of the strange and eccentric places of London.  Some of the places to which he took me were very strange places indeed; but, however strange the places were, I observed that the inhabitants thought there were no places like their several places, and no occupations like their several occupations; and among other strange places to which Francis Ardry conducted me was a place not far from the abbey church of Westminster.

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Before we entered this place our ears were greeted by a confused hubbub of human voices, squealing of rats, barking of dogs, and the cries of various other animals.  Here we beheld a kind of cock-pit, around which a great many people, seeming of all ranks, but chiefly of the lower, were gathered, and in it we saw a dog destroy a great many rats in a very small period; and when the dog had destroyed the rats, we saw a fight between a dog and a bear, then a fight between two dogs, then . . . .