of fa clear conscience within; and you knew that Giles Furrow would immediately slap it-the waistcoatover the left pocket, and say, 'Dang it, the 'art that beats 'ere,' &c. And of course he did. What other moral sentiments Giles gave expression to, and what immoral ditto the villainous squire, Sir Narcissus Slapdash, hissed through his teeth, I will not undertake to say; for Mr. Nelson Lee, the 'author of a thousand pantomimes,' kept beating the gong on the parade outside, as if he felt jealous of any one hearing and admiring the wit of the ' author of a hundred burlesques' inside. In this contest with his rival Mr. Lee certainly had the best of iton this occasion, at least. Yet, stop! I do remember one thing, which an interval in the beating of that envious gong enabled me to hear. The villain named his price for doing a deed of darkness. It was two thousand two hundred and twenty-two pounds, twelve shillings, and twopence three farthings. "There,' said his wicked employer, giving him a purse, 'you have the exact amount.'

I must not omit to notice one of the funniest things in the fair: and that was Mr. James Rogers's Poses Plastiques. Dressed as the widow Melnotte, in the Strand burlesque of Bulwer's play, Mr. Rogers appeared at the door of his tent and invited the public to walk in and support a 'pore widder,' who had nothing but her poses to subsist upon. Mr. Rogers did not open his show until late in the day, owing, as it appeared, to a variety of circumstances over which he had no control. The chief of these was the want of figures. Mr. Rogers was ready and so was the revolving table, but where were the king and the countryman, and the robbers who were to point the moral and adorn the tale which Mr. Rogers was bursting to unfold? Well; it appeared that they were too much occupied on the parade of the Richardsonian Theatre' to be spared just then. At length, not being in a position to demand these necessary personages as a right, Mr. Rogers endeavoured to borrow them. "Mr. Rogers' compliments to Mr. Nelson Lee and he wants the loan

of a king.' 'Mr. Nelson Lee's compliments to Mr. Rogers and he has only one sovereign and can't spare him; but will lend him an organgrinder if that will serve the real article caught that morning in Hatton Garden.' On the principle of the smallest contributions thankfully received, the organ-grinder was accepted; but proved on trial -as the real article always proves on these matters-a dead failure. The organ-grinder being much too natural to be amusing, was ignominiously dismissed; and I believe in the end, Mr. Rogers, following the example of Guy, Earl of Warwick, made his own king on the spot. Of course the great power that could create a king out of the very first material that came to hand experienced no difficulty in extemporizing two courtiers, a countryman, and a villain. There they are all dressed, and in alarming attitudes on the widow's revolving table. All in to begin. Now then, ladies and gentlemen, you see at a glance that they aint wax. Observe the perspiration on the king's brow; if he were wax he'd have run away long ago. Go.' Round goes the table. Ladies and gentlemen, that party in the flowered waistcoat and the wide awake hat is Hinnocence. Observe: Hinnocence offers a penny buster to the king. The king declines the penny buster with royal indignation and aims a blow at Hinnocence. Hinnocence is a good deal more artful than he looks, and dodges the king: Observe how Hinnocence dodges the king; consequently the blow falls upon the head of that gentleman in the brown whiskers, whom you will instantly recognize as a relative of Henry the Eighth by the shape of his calves. The relative of Henry the Eighth dies. serve him die. Hinnocence points to the dead body and the king is sorry. Observe the royal sorrow.' I am not very sure how the drama proceeded after this, but everybody was killed, including Hinnocence, who, after overcoming all his enemies, fell dead under the overwhelming weight of his own clear conscience. And then the widow in a tearful mood, wiping her eyes with

Ob

OW Mr. Tagge, the footman,

ever deigned to mount that dingy, old-fashioned, creaking, wooden staircase which leads to my chambers on the second floor, in Blank Street, is wonderful. The housekeeper, Mrs. Kinahan, felt his condescension deeply, as she stood, broom in hand, and replied to the question which he put to her, in accents soft, yet proud

'Is your mawster hin?" 'Yis, to be sure, sir; and if you'l stip this way

But Tagge had fulfilled his mission, and, discreetly pausing on the threshold of my oak,' presented an elegant little billet of mauve-coloured paper to Mrs. K., who, after wiping her hands carefully on a cotton apron, received it, smiling. I saw an air of languid pity on Tagge's features when he rejoined the carriage below; but he touched his hat reverentially to its occupants, jumped gracefully up behind the vehicle, and was borne in triumph down the street.

The moment I saw the note I diagnosed, as the doctors say, its authorship and contents. There was no mistaking that neat flowing hand. I could swear to that capital L anywhere; so when I opened it, and read

Lady Lynkman at home.

Three o'clock.

Wednesday, 16th July, 1862.

I was not taken by surprise, and forthwith placed the little document in company with some dozen others on my mantelpiece. It was bad company, I admit. There was a note from Stippler asking me to come and do a pipe with him on the 14th, and an invitation to the Convivial Club for the previous Saturday, and Mrs. Mangles's hebdomadal entry of716 cols.

12 pkthandkfs

2 cambrics

7 lin. do.

I vest,' &c. &c.,

also a polite reminder from my tobacconist, beginning

'Mr. Cavendish presents his respects to J. Easel, Esq., and having a little bill to meet shortly, I shall feel obliged by,' &c. &c. &c.

The mauve-coloured missive, I say, might have blushed magenta to find itself in such society; but the fact is, the season was nearly over, and its little confrères summoning me to the society of the great had been one by one consigned to the waste-paper basket. What matters? My chimney-corner is a small republic, in which a host of different objects find a place-sketch-books, paletteknives, meerschaums, memoranda, cards and letters, a photograph or two, a patent 'etna,' a flower, may be, which I choose to cherish in an old Venetian beaker; and a pair of well-worn boxing-gloves dangling from above remind me of the days when I cultivated the art of self-defence, with such indifferent result as to be floored by Planter (of Corpus) regularly three nights in the week.

It is the duty of Mrs. Kinahan to keep this museum in order, i. e. to put everything straight every morning, in precisely the very last place in which I should think of looking for it. Exempli gratiâ. Do I deposit my paper-cutter in the inkstand?-next day I find it behind the clock. If I try to identify it with that situation, Mrs. K. consigns it to the chiffonier; when I look on the chiffonier for it, lo! it has vanished to the book-case.

The worst of it is, that I can get no redress for this provocation. When I call Mrs. K. to account for this annoyance, she takes refuge in the conduct of her son. That is her Broad Sanctuary, so to speak. 'It ain't no fault of mine, sir,' she says, when I remonstrate; 'it's Tom as done it, I'll be bound.' Tom is my youthful retainer, æt. thirteen, just blossoming into buttons, who, for a consideration of some five shillings a week, pretends to brush my clothes and black my boots-finds my errands a convenient opportunity for indulging in his favourite game of

tip-cat in the adjoining square, and tries to make himself generally useless-in which endeavour, to do him justice, he usually succeeds.

'I know he is erritating, Mister Reasel, sir, and that mischeevyus, that I can't tell what to do with him,' pursues Mrs. K. Only last Thursday I caught him a "overing" the postes with his best soot on, and I'm sure it's a mercy he didn't split hisself. Which with such purshoots, sir, his hands will get grimed, you see, sir, and it's seldom or hever he washes 'em. Ah-I only wish he'd take after his poor dear father, who was a model to any one. Most amiable, too, he was, sir, and druv the Dook of Bufton too years. And before Mr. Dooberry, as 'ad the second floor, left these chambers, he was that provoked with Tom, that he says to me one morning, he says, "I'm afraid he's a bad lot, Mrs. K. If Mister Reasel's tooked a fancy to the boy, he'd better go into his service and he may kip him, if he likes; but I'll be dashed if I do," was the words he said.'

*

I must not, however, digress, or we shall never be at home' with Lady Lynkman. As it was, when the afternoon arrived, I was terribly late, owing to a dozen little domestic drawbacks incidental to celibacy. For instance, there is the oft-quoted subject of shirt-buttons. It is bad enough to find them deficient; but when, being in their proper place, they fall like autumn leaves at the slightest touch, and in the middle of one's toilette, it is really too exasperating; and I can only conclude that Mrs. Mangles, prompted, no doubt, by some fiendish design against my comfort, adopts the crafty plan of glueing them to my linen with her own starch, in order to provoke me.

Moreover, I was unfortunate in my cab. Time was when one could rely upon a Hansom for speed; but now, in every other one of those patent vehicles the horse is a confirmed 'jib.' As for the animal in No. 4007, which I selected on account of its huge and bony appearance, it had the faculty of employing a vast amount of effort to make very little way, with a sort of shambling action,

which encouraged the suspicion that for every two steps forward it took a step and a half back. This extraordinary phenomenon caused some delay in my transit from Blank Street to Dashington Square; and when I arrived at Lady L.'s house, I found the little reception rooms quite full.

It is the custom with certain social philosophers to moralize on the artificialness of our present habits as compared with those of our forefathers' time, and to instance late hours as an example of degeneration; but what, I ask, is the difference between an early dinner of the last century and a hot luncheon in this? If we feed again at eight o'clock, our ancestors supped half an hour later. Mutato nomine: call a Georgian supper a Victorian dinner, and we are about on a par. As for teacan five or six o'clock P.M. be considered a 'fashionable hour' for the consumption of that beverage, when our washerwomen sit down to their souchong at the selfsame time? In this particular, at all events, the 'cold shade of the aristocracy' has engendered no fungi, and the habits of Belgravia assimilate to those of Ball's Pond.

I drank my infusion with considerable relish in company with Miss Armstrong, the American painter, whose enthusiasm for art is only equalled by her contempt for those conventionalities of modern life which distinguish the habits, dress, and language of her own from those of the opposite sex. To part her hair on the off-side, to wear a jacket and all round' collar, to thrust her hands in her pockets and swagger about the room chaffing the men -these are some of the characteristics of our Transatlantic heroine; and, apart from her professional skill, which I will not dispute, they have the effect of fascinating not a few. Report does insinuate that one admirer, weak enough to be betrayed into a confession of his ardour, was kicked out of her studio in Paris by the very boots near which he proposed to deposit his heart and fortune. 'Guess the old hoss won't come that game again,' remarked Mi's A., in recounting the anecdote; an I must say, for my own part,

that the old hoss' deserves the name of another quadruped if he ever repeats the experiment.

When I went up stairs I found Lady Lynkman in earnest conversation with Sidi Benassish, commonly known as 'Seedy Ben,' whom I had met before at the Acropolis Club, when dining with M'Grubb, the celebrated delineator of Oriental life and manners. A remarkable man that -Benassish I mean. The Scotchman is good fun in his way, but he is nothing to Sidi. That enterprising foreigner, who has been sent over here by the Sultan to study things in general for the benefit of the Ottoman empire, takes the greatest pains to acquire a taste for English habits, with which, however, he is as yet but imperfectly acquainted. When, on the occasion of his return dinner at Claridge's, he solemnly helped me to half a salmon, I believe he only acted up to his ideas of hospitality. Bakallum!' he remarked, when I begged for a smaller portion; 'friend of my friend, I vos not born yesterday,' and sent the astonished waiter for more fish.

But it is in dissipating delusions in the popular British mind respecting the institutions of his own country that our Effendi finds the greatest pleasure. Polygamy, he assured me, was unknown in Turkey, and the late Sultan was celebrated for his domestic virtues. The fez is an English invention, worn only for greater convenience in travelling. Was there such an emblem as the crescent? It might be-at all events he had never heard of it. As for its having any connection with a tradition about Mahomet and the moon, there never was a greater mistake. No difference worth mentioning existed between our national faith and that of Turkey. The Bible and the Koran were, he believed, identical; but if not quite so, the Koran was decidedly the more Christian of the two.

In fact, our friend told me SO many bouncers, out of sheer politeness, that I took quite a fancy to him, and on this occasion did him a good turn, by just preventing in time the ignition of a huge chiboukful of tobacco, which he was pre

paring to smoke with great gusto in the conservatory.

'Good gwacious-what a man! Who is he? Where did he come fwom? Who bwought him? What does he mean by it?' inquires Gainsborough Jones, the art critic. G. J. is a great connoisseur and author, whose presence is indispensable to Lady L.'s réunions. His age is unknown-likewise the natural colour of his hair. Doubts are also entertained about the authenticity of his incisors; but his judgment of pictures is accepted as infallible. The young painters toady him for a notice in the Propylæum,' and young ladies universally pronounce him 'agreeable.'

What is it to be agreeable in ladies' society? Is it to talk incessantly on subjects of small interest? Is it to lisp, and mispronounce our mothertongue? Is it to have a good figure and a faultless tailor?-to dance lazily, or lounge with grace? Methinks to turn the heads of some women, man needs but little in his own. There was Wilkes, the ugly lady-killer, who said he only wanted half an hour's start to distance all competitors. How did he employ that precious interval? Did the gallant outlaw dazzle his fair friends with the brilliancy of his wit, or fascinate them with pure nonchalance? To me G. J.'s remarks sound rather flat; but then he has the bel' air, and his whiskers are unexceptionable.

I am interrupted in my reverie by the sound of a familiar voice, and turn round to pay my homage to a sphinx in petticoats. I use this name out of no disrespect to Mrs. Archley, for whose attainments I have the profoundest admiration, but simply because I cannot understand her. A devoted wife, who is never with her husband- -a skilled musician, who never plays a lady whose dowry is ample, but whose dress is shabbywho, with a carriage at her bidding, prefers to hail a cab from the nearest stand;-such a woman, I say, is an enigma which I cannot solve. Her horror of blue-stockings is patent to all; but when her husband, the Member, is going to lecture on political economy, I know who writes half his

essay. She once rated me finely for going to Cremorne, and a week or so afterwards I met her at Mabille. It was her uncle the fox-hunting squire whom she had agreed to chaperone on that occasion; and while the old gentleman was looking at the jeu de bagues, a student from the Quartier Latin asked her to dance. I don't know what she could have said to him in answer, but M. Jules made a tremendous bow, and retreated with an alacrity not usually characteristic of Jeune France. Quelle drôle d'Anglaise par examp,' I heard him say to the companion whom he rejoined; 'veux-tu fumer Valentin?' And the two youths went back to their anisette. The fact is, this lady seems to look on herself as a privileged member of society, who can do and say what she likes without offending Mrs. Grundy. She will call Young Rapid to account for his peccadilloes, or stop in the street to help an apple-woman in recovering the contents of her overturned basket. I have known her even appear without crinoline; and can I give a better instance than that of her wonderful courage and eccentricity?

It would be difficult for the cleverest lounger in a London drawingroom to choose a subject which Mrs. Archley is not prepared to discuss, be it the American war, the last new novel, the foreign picture-gallery, British politics or Paris bonnetsshe can enter in turn on all these matters, and what she says will be worth hearing. Yet with all her cleverness I find a pleasing contrast to her in the quiet naïveté and gentle bearing of Lady B., who sits beside her, and whose name English children remember with delight as the illustrator of half their picturebooks. An episode in the life of Goody Two-shoes, or one of Jack the Giant-killer's famous exploits will form in her hands the subjectmatter for a charming sketch-more valuable, to my mind, than many a more pretentious work hung up in Trafalgar Square. To be in earnest with one's theme, whether in the pulpit or the studio, is, after all, the real secret of eloquence, of success. For this young mother there is a charm in fairy lore, and I cannot

fancy a happier task for such an artist than, with her children gathered round her, to realize the incidents of this innocent mythology. As a rule, the professional gentlemen are a little jealous of her, and when Daubney, the portrait-painter, saunters up to pay his respects, I know that it is only because she' married a baronet, who may be useful to him in the way of business. To do Daubney justice, he never loses an opportunity of advancing his interests in this particular, and it is chiefly owing to his zeal in procuring introductions that he is now known in Mayfair as a rising man. Rising, indeed! But a few years back Daubney occupied the gloomiest of ateliers in Soho; Messrs. Sloman and Moss were his tailors, and he paid them-when he could. He dined at eighteenpenny ordinaries and smoked a modest clay. What! is this swaggering dandy, this soidisant bosom friend of half the British aristocracy, the same dingy student of those early days? 'Today,' says Stippler (who has not been equally successful), Mr. Daubney would be affable and condescending, but if I met him in the Park to-morrow with Lord Ridgway he would not know me. Faugh! would you have me shake hands with such a man? I tell you I have cut him now; and if he wishes to repay me the few guineas he borrowed, let him send a post-office order.'

In such honest fits of indignation does Stippler's spleen find vent until we are interrupted by the sound of fiddling at the other end of the room, and Signor Vermicelli begins to play. Profoundly ignorant of the violinist's art, how can I attempt a description of that wonderful performance? The air selected was, if I recollect rightly, 'Where the bee sucks;' but after the first few bars Ariel flew away into endless variations. First, he was nestling in a cowslip bell, and the cry of the Stryx flammea (or barn owl) was effectively imitated above the bridge of the instrument by Signor V. But when emerging from the field-flower the sprite soared into mid-air, with exquisite