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of the West End.
    Dennis was in St James’s when he met his second significant patroness (after the Dublin coffee house owner). Some threehundred chairs were in competition, but this November day offered plenty of custom: it was the birthday of George II. Horsedrawn coaches could make no progress through the gridlocked streets, and the chairmen were in demand. A lady’s driver, frustrated on his journey to the palace (St James’s Palace was then the principal royal residence), hailed Dennis from his stalled vehicle. Dennis leaped to the lady’s assistance, accompanying her to his chair and scattering the onlookers who had jostled forward to view such a fine personage. He ‘acted with such powers and magnanimity, that her ladyship conceived him to be a regeneration of Hercules or Hector, and her opinion was by no means altered when she beheld the powerful elasticity of his muscular motions on the way to the Royal residence. Dennis touched her ladyship’s guinea, and bowed in return for a bewitching smile which accompanied it.’ 2
    You may conclude that this mock-heroic description is an acknowledgement that the story is preposterous. But the eighteenth century was a period of great social, and sexual, intermingling. In some ways (ways that Dennis would learn about, but never respect), the class structure was rigid; in others, it mattered little. Important men conducted open affairs with prostitutes and other humble women, and from time to time married them. Not so many grand women took humble men as lovers, but a few did. Lady Henrietta Wentworth married her footman. Adventurous sex lives were common. ‘Many feminine libertines may be found amongst young women of rank, ’ observed Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, the renowned letter writer. Lady Harley was said to have become pregnant by so many lovers that, the historian Roy Porter recorded, her children were known as the ‘Harleian miscellany’.
    The day following Dennis’s encounter with Lady — (the Genuine Memoirs gives no name or initials), he was loitering outside White’s Chocolate House, musing on her smile, when an elderly woman asked him the way to Bolton Row in Piccadilly. She offered him a shilling to escort her there. When they arrived, she invited him in from the cold to take a drink. The mistress of the house greeted Dennis and asked him whether he knew of any chairmen looking for a place. ‘Yes, Madam, ’ Dennis answered, ‘an’ that I do: I should be very glad to be after recommending myself, because I know myself, and love myself better than any one else. ’Well, then, the woman replied, he should go to the house of Lady — in Hanover Square, mention no name, but say that he had heard of the vacant position. ‘God in heaven bless you, ’ Dennis exclaimed, draining his substantial glass of brandy.
    The next morning, Dennis dressed himself as finely as he could, and presented himself in Hanover Square. He made the right impression, got the job, at a salary of £30 a year, and started work the next day. Standing in the hall, self-conscious in his new livery and excited at this access to grandeur, he looked up to see his mistress descending the staircase. She was of course the same Lady — whose teasing smile had occupied his thoughts since their journey to the palace. But she offered no hint of recognition. She hurried into her chair, making it known that she wished to be conveyed to the Opera House. Her expression on arrival was more encouraging; and when, at the end of her appointment, she came out of the theatre, she blessed Dennis with another smile, more provocative than before. Taking his hand, she squeezed it gently round a purse. He felt his strength liquefy; a tremendous effort of concentration was required to force his trembling limbs to carry the chair safely home. Alone, he opened the purse, to find that it contained five guineas.
    The next day was busy. No sooner