1879. Greenwood, Outcasts of London. But what was barking? I
thought a great deal about the matter, and could arrive at no more
feasible conclusion than that a barker was a boy that attended a
drover, and helped him to drive his sheep by means of imitating the
bark of a dog.
6. (University.)—A noisy assertive individual; and, in a complimentary
sense, a great swell.