Richard Marsh 
Frivolities, Especially Addressed to Those Who Are Tired of Being Serious 

Excerpt: "I come here in answer to an advertisement, at great personal inconvenience to myself, and I am shown into a room with a number of most extraordinary characters; and one person, who, I am sure, was the worse for drink, asks me the most impertinent questions, and when I appeal for protection to another individual, he tells me that he has enough to do in attending to his own business without interfering with other people’s, and I have positively to ring the bell twice before I can receive any proper attention.’ …’As for me, I’m not going through the farce of describing the purse I lost, because I know very well you haven’t got it; but I’ll tell you this–I’ve come all the way from Hackney, and I’ve wasted a day, and I don’t mean to leave this house till you’ve paid me my expenses. …He wanted me to pin one number to the lot of them; and as I was a-arguing with him, and tryin’ to understand how he made out as I could do that, seeing as how the pins was little ones, and the numbers not large ones neither, a lot of other gents came up, and this here young gent he got quite red in the face, and he snatched a number out of my hand and he walked off, and he left me staring."