A. K. G.

N

ber, I found myself in the Strand, wandering in the fog, like some uneasy spectre that had got a half-holiday, and did not know how to spend it. I had left off groaning and clanking my chains for the day and for the week, and had come out to meet, and hold friendly converse with, other spectres that had similarly disburdened themselves. But on this particular Saturday I do not encounter a single known face. I wander on and on, from St. Clement's to St. Mary-le-Strand; on to the fish shop, where hangs the portrait of a popular dramatist, enshrined in a frame of lobsters, and crowned with endive-the popular dramatist apparently turning up his nose at a rather fat leg of mutton; on to the umbrella-shop, where the proprietor pops out upon you suddenly, and suggests comparison between himself and the head of Punch, which adorns one of his sticks; on to that seductive corner where you are invited to partake of a sandwich and a bumper of 'burgundy' for fourpence, and where you invariably say,

No, thank you, I'd rather not;' on to the lamps which mock you with the idea of a dairy ever having existed in the Strand; on to that great gap in the pavement, with a family tea-shop straight ahead, where you invariably feel that you have reached

the western limit of the Strand proper-on thus far, and I have not seen a friendly spectre to speak to. I have not been spoken to, save, indeed, by the human spider near Exeter Hall, who has twice invited me to walk in and have my photograph taken. Why does he not ask me to walk in and have my head shaved or my throat cut? What is the matter with the Strand to-day? Usually on a Saturday afternoon I cannot walk the length of three shops without meeting some one to stop and have a few minutes' gossip with-to-day I meet no one. I look in at the clubs-yes; there are clubs in the Strand, magnificent, palatial places, with marble pillars and gilt cornices, where the members never drink anything but champagne, and make a rule of black balling all dukes, marquises, and bishops-and I find the gorgeous saloons deserted-deserted by all save the Bore. There he sits solus, patiently waiting for an opportunity to be disquisitive on the American war, or the revolution in Greece, or the rate of discount, or anything else, confound him. No, no, I am not going to be caught by his poor chaff, miserable as I am. I withdraw my head from the door like a flash of lightning, for fear that he should see me, and pounce upon me, and make my life a torment unto me for the rest of that dreary day.

I go back to the deserted Strand, and feel a strong impulse to get upon a post, and in a loud voice demand to know where everybody has gone to. Suddenly, as if divining my perplexity, a voice shouts in my

ear

'Exhibition!'

"Eh!-what?-Exhibition! What is the fellow talking about? Does not the fog tell me that this is November, and

'Exhibition, sir-last day, sir.' Suddenly I remember. To be sure. It was to have been closed on the 18th of October; but, entirely out of consideration for the public, the final day was postponed to the 1st of November. Now I see why the Strand is deserted. My question is answered. Everybody has gone to the Exhibition. I shall go there too, and see the last of it. I shall spend a pleasant afternoon, after all. I shall meet lots of fellows I know; I shall dine once more pleasantly with Mr. Morrish; I shall hear the closing musical ceremony; I shall endeavour to be the last man in the building, that I may boast of it afterwards, and then perhaps I shall be able to reimburse myself for all the attendant outlay, by making an article of my experience, and sending it to London Society.'

What a relief it is on a dull day like this, when you have nothing to do, and nobody to speak to, suddenly to find an object-something to interest you, and direct your thoughts into a new channel! A minute or two ago I was the most wretched being in the Strand-which is saying something, I expect; but now I am sitting on the knife-board of a threehorse 'bus, as gay, as cheerful, and as expectant as a schoolboy going home for the holidays. It is so pleasant to get out of one's beaten track, and tread new paths. Although I am in the Strand every day of my life, it suddenly strikes me, as I pass Hungerford Market, that I have not been so far west for six months. Hungerford Market has been laid in ruins since I was here last. On the occasion of my very latest visit to the spot, Mr. Gatti was still dispensing his penny ices in that grand hall of his. Now that grand

hall is a heap of ruins, and, as I pass the end of the street, I fancy I can see Mr. Gatti, Marius-like, sitting among the broken bricks, weeping for his Carthage. Carts are taking the bricks away. What an opportunity for a burlesque writer to make a pun! How exhilarating to gaze once more upon the graceful fountains of Trafalgar Square! How delightful to see King George still continuing to enjoy his ride up Charing Cross on that high 'metalled 'steed of his! And now the Haymarket, with its Palaces of the Seven Senses, all looking so dull, and dingy, and shabby in the daylight. How innocent it looks, now that Vathek has gone home to bed, and the reek of his debaucheries has cleared off, and ascended to high heaven! Lord Dundreary's palace on the right sadly wants a new coat of paint. Perhaps our friend Mr. Asa Trenchard never has an opportunity of seeing it except at night, when the gas is alight, and the loudest roars,' &c., are going on. If he will oblige by looking at it in the day from the opposite side of the street, I guess' he will feel ashamed of it. Somebody has noticed that molluscous and crustaceous edibles have a strangely intimate association with vicious pleasures. This observation must have been made in the Haymarket. Every second shop is an emporium for the sale of lobsters and oysters! Why do not some of these shops advertise the 'severest headaches,' as the shop below furnishes the 'loudest roars?'

Through the Circus and down Piccadilly, until we come to that squat, three-story, stone-faced house, timidly retiring behind gates from the street, as if afraid of its noise and bustle. The omnibus rider always looks about him here, in the hope of catching a glimpse of that sturdy-looking veteran with the whiskers like a lion's mane, who is often to be seen emerging from the gate on the back of a brown cob. The drawing-room blinds are down, the shutters are closed in that little room where the veteran does all his writing at a stand-up desk, the outer gate is shut, and the driver, divining your

thoughts, jerks his head towards the right, and says He's out of town.'

Yes; he is at Broadlands to-day, giving Baron Thierry a lesson on political economy over a bottle of old port. Notwithstanding the gout, the veteran cannot take kindly to Mr. Gladstone's claret. Yes; that big new house is Baron Rothschild's, and that perky little one by the side of it is Mr. Antrobus's, and while the driver (over his shoulder) is telling me how the Baron wanted to buy the perky little house to include in his own, and how Mr. Antrobus wouldn't let him have it, and said he'd see the Baron blowed first, we get over the ground rapidly, leave the house that Hudson built to the right, rattle away through trucks and stalls of the Brompton Road, and here we are at the house that Kelk and Lucas built.

Why, it is half-past three, I declare; and the closing ceremony is to take place at four, and everybody is to be cleared out by five. I rush to the great door, throw down my half-crown-which the man rings on the top of the turnstile distrustfully - and find myself, before I know it, standing under the Eastern Dome. Every part of the building seems densely packed with visitors, and the great throng in the nave streaming away to a point where it grows dim and spectral in the fog, presents something like a realization of Martin's picture of 'Belshazzar's Feast,' in the gallery yonder. I push about among the stagnant crowd at Minton's fountain, and soon perceive that no one is troubling himself to go round and take a last view of the various sights. They have seen them all long ago, and they are only waiting now for the closing ceremonial. What it is to be, or where it is to take place, no one seems precisely to know; but it is to happen at four o'clock, and their patience must soon be gratified, for it is now twenty minutes to that hour. The crinolines are very expansive and inconvenient here under the eastern dome, and Piesse and Lubin's odours are positively suffocating. I have twenty minutes to spare. What

shall I go and see and take a last farewell look at? The Tinted Venus? No. I prefer a marble statue that has not had a cup of weak chocolate thrown over it. The Koh-i-noor? I mutter this aloud, and a policeman at my elbow says

'Can't get within a mile of it; the women have been swarming round it all day like flies round a sugar cask; pushin' in among 'em is like running agen a railing; an Armstrong pounder couldn't do it.'

I have it. I shall scamper through the picture galleries once more, and have another look at the Blue Boy' and the Sick Child.' I don't know whether I am a good judge of pictures or not; but of all the pictures in the Exhibition, my two prime favourites are the Blue Boy' and the 'Sick Child.' I don't care about the blue jacket or the blue breeks,' though they are doubtless a great triumph over the stubbornness of ultramarine, but the boy's face is just the loveliest thing I ever saw upon canvas. Again, I don't care twopence about those two grim French nurses in those impossible great flapping caps, but that little, weak child wearing away' before your eyes on the blanket, is surely such pitiful tenderness as artist's pencil never expressed before. I shall never see those pictures again, but no length of time can ever rub them out from my memory. who possess them may shut them up in your galleries, but I shall see them still. I have their living photographs in my mind's eye. I care not to see more, and I scamper away through France, Holland, Belgium, Russia, Norway, and Sweden, and by a lucky chance arrive in the western dome just as the closing ceremony is commencing. I hurry down stairs and join the crowd under the dome. A Prussian organ is grunting out the symphony to God Save the Queen.' A miscellaneous crowd of ladies in cloaks and heavy shawls have collected in a huddled mass in front of the gallery. Is this the ceremony? Surely no. Surely the dazzling ceremonial of the 1st of May has not dwindled down to this. The symphony is grunted out, and a

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