'[1680s] when the lord of a Lincolnshire or Shropshire manor
appeared in Fleet Street, he was as easily distinguished from the
resident population as a Turk or a Lascar.
'His dress, his gait, his accent, the manner in which he gazed at
the shops, stumbled into the gutters, ran against the porters, and
stood under the waterspouts, marked him out as an excellent subject
for the operations of swindlers and barterers. Bullies jostled him
into the kennel. Hackney coachmen splashed him from head to
foot. Thieves explored with perfect security the huge pockets of his
horseman's coat, while he stood entranced by the splendour of the
Lord Mayor's show. Moneydroppers, sore from the cart's tail,
introduced themselves to him, and appeared to him the most honest
friendly gentlemen that he had ever seen. Painted women, the refuse
of Lewkner Lane and Whetstone Park, passed themselves on him for
countesses and maids of honour.
'If he asked his way to Saint James's, his informants sent him to
Mile End. If he went into a shop, he was instantly discerned to be a
fit purchaser of everything that nobody else would buy, of
second-hand embroidery, copper rings, and watches that would not go.
'If he rambled into any fashionable coffee house, he became a mark
for the insolent derision of fops and the grave waggery of Templars.
'Enraged and mortified, he soon returned to his mansion, and there,
in the homage of his tenants and the conversation of his boon
companions, found consolation for the vexatious and humiliations
which he had undergone.'