Christ, I wish they'd lose that'un! Lewrie thought, wincing as his father jostled him as he got out behind him.

"Black Alan!" was hooted from others. "Three cheers, huzzah!"

Hell's Bells, that'un's not a whit better! he thought.

"Smile, damn ye," his father cautioned in a harsh whisper right near his ear. "Confidence, hmmm? Show for the damned Mob, what? As yer barrister said?" Sir Hugo prompted.

Lewrie forced himself to smile, took off his hat, and transferred it to his left hand, to leave his right one free… to fend off the pick-pockets, if for nothing else. The last time he'd appeared before King's Bench the summer before, one particularly skilled young lady of "the lifting lay," as his notorious old school friend Clotworthy Chute called it, had made off with his watch and fob and leather coin purse right as he'd threaded his way through throngs of well-wishers after his case had been held over for review! So it was understandable he kept his "top-lights" skinned for the charming "Three-Handed Jenny"!

Thursday the eighth of January, and bloody damned early in the morning to boot, was a hellish cold day for London. Had Lewrie his druthers, he'd have worn two boat-cloaks and a carriage blanket round his knees, but… his impending trial had become a Nine-Day Wonder, no thanks to the many tracts, cartoon prints, and "bought" newspaper articles put out by the Reverend William Wilberforce's Society for the Abolition of Slavery in the British Empire the last year, entire, so Lewrie could hardly disguise himself any longer, nor could he swaddle himself against the weather, either. Reluctantly, he flung back the boat-cloak to reveal his gilt-laced uniform coat, and the hundred-guinea presentation sword given him by the East India Company after a sea fight against a French frigate in the South Atlantic that saved a small convoy of "John Company" ships returning from India, in 1799.