Not that Tom Folio did not have callers vastly more
aristocratic, though he could have had none pleasanter or wholesomer.
Sir Philip Sidney (who must have given Folio that copy of the
"Arcadia"), the Viscount St. Albans, and even two or three others before
whom either of these might have doffed his bonnet, did not disdain to
gather round that hearthstone. Fielding, Smollett, Sterne, Defoe, Dick
Steele, Dean Swift--there was no end to them! On certain nights, when
all the stolid neighborhood was lapped in slumber, the narrow street
stretching beneath Tom Folio's windows must have been blocked with
invisible coaches and sedan-chairs, and illuminated by the visionary
glare of torches borne by shadowy linkboys hurrying hither and thither.
A man so sought after and companioned cannot be described as lonely.
My memory here recalls the fact that he had a few friends less
insubstantial--that quaint anatomy perched on the top of a hand-organ,
to whom Tom Folio was wont to give a bite of his apple; and the
brown-legged little Neapolitan who was always nearly certain of a copper
when this multi-millionaire strolled through the slums on a Saturday
afternoon--Saturday probably being the essayist's pay-day.
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