enormous telescopes, letters of apartments,
keepers of circulating libraries, Ethiopian
serenaders, German bandsmen, boot, saddle, to
horse, and away to Herringtown-by-the-Sea;
for a real live ex-duchess, Princess of Pinchen-
gripzen, has arrived there, and all Cockneydom
is hurrying thither. Away, snobs; fly, toadies,
fly; for is there not a real duchess daily perambulating
the Marine Parade at Herringtown-by-the-Sea?
Rejoice, snobs and toadies; for
you can now store at her, and elbow her, and
no one can say you nay, and it is something to
have been even within twenty yards of a real
ex-duchess.

No one respects well-bred ladies of rank
more than ourselves. When dignity is meekly
and justly worn, we admire the forbearance and
self-control of the wearers, and we regard them
as not uncommendable rulers of mankind; but
whose gorge would not rise at these respectable
people at Herringtown-by-the-Sea, crowding
round a quiet invalid lady and her children,
gaping at her two gigantic and intensely sedate
footmen, jostling her dowdy German governess,
staring, pointing, whispering, and giggling?
It is loathsome, it is vulgar, it is uncourteous,
it is snobbish. There is no loyalty in it, for
not one of the genteel mob would lay down a
chignon or a whisker to serve the ex-Duchess
of Pinchengripzen. It is merely a new form of
the love of money; for power is only money
grown rank, and these idiots run about after a
duchess because she typifies wealth, success,
and social importance. She might be a Poppœa,
instead of a good amiable wife: she might be
hideous as Sycorax, instead of being fair and
comely as she is—the fools would still run,
gape, crowd, intrude, and stare, and render the
great lady's life a burden to her.

In spite of all this base development of the
worst points of the English character, shown
even by the clergy at Herringtown (toadies
too), who actually strike up God Save the
Queen when this poor quiet lady tries to steal
softly as a mouse, unobserved, out of the
church, Herringtown is a pretty and pleasant
place. It is mighty pretty of an autumn morning
before breakfast, with the surf creaming
along the shore, the ocean of a delicious aqua-
marine colour, melting into sapphire; the fishing
boats getting greyer as they recede towards
the horizon; the ruins of the old Norman castle
rising golden on the cloudy cliff; a German
band clashing in some distant square, and
mellowed into enchanted music; pretty nurse-maids
and their rosy charges, laughing and
chasing; and, at the great weather-beaten
capstan on the Parade, a gang of brown old sailors
and sturdy sailor-boys working in a collier brig,
that is going to discharge her cargo; while
yonder, on the beach, a man tosses up spadefuls
of wet silt, that in the morning sunlight flash
like diamond dust.

I have a disagreeable suspicion, though,
founded on some continental observation,
that, spite of the innocence of this tranquil
little place, the ex-Duchess of Pinchengripzen,
amiable and confiding as she looks, has a
mind not unclouded with the old Pinchen-
gripzen fears. I am convinced that she has
given orders to be strictly watched, although
in an unobtrusive way. There they are; I
know their steely eyes, hard mouths, and
askance looks. They can't disguise
themselves from me, for I have seen them all
before in the Unter den Linden, on the Boulevards,
in the Prater, in the Konigsplatz, on the
Boompjees. You see that well-dressed, portly
city man on the Parade, just by the third seat
—city man who has evidently travelled— Spy,
revolver in his right-hand pocket! That
young swell cross-legged, lavender gloves,
bunch of violets in his button-hole, holding
Maltese dog by a purple ribbon, while he
carelessly swings a sword-stick—Spy. Remark
that old feeble clergyman, with black worsted
gloves, one hand on a Bath chair, which
contains fat woman in black—Spy—revolver up
the small of his back—Spy double distilled.
Look at that jolly red-faced bourgeois on
the seat by the great hotel, who draws you
into conversation about Pinchengripzen politics
(may they be accursed!)—Spy again, hot from
Scotland Yard yesterday, and just off the
Fenian business, came by last boat from Cork.
He is better known as Sergeant M'Donald,
and a very sharp hand; I see him smile when
the idiotic crowd, not having a clear notion of
what the ex-Duchess of Pinchengripzen is like,
close round her children's German governess,
or her butler's wife and two big footmen, and
are just as happy as if the old dowdy hag were
the real ex-Duchess herself. Innocent happy
people that we are, the greater part of us do
not know a spy when we see him.

It has been a tremendous night. When I got
up this blessed morning, the gusts of rain were
driving past the window at the rate of fifteen
thousand miles an hour, and the wind was
roaring like a wild beast round the corners of
the Parade. The snobs will have a miserable
day of it, for the ex-Duchess of Pinchengripzen
will not show. The spies will have
a glorious time of it at pool, for there will be
no one to watch but each other.

"Fine herrings—fresh and fine O—Her-
r-r-r-r-r-ings!" shouts a weather-beaten old
fisherman, with one eye; he wears a yellow
oilskin sou'-wester, and an orange-brown short
smock, peculiar to Herringtown fishermen,
colour not unbecoming, as toning down the
superabundant bricky-brown of their hardy
complexions. His trousers have been artfully
framed out of stubborn cloth, and are of enormous
width, as if the owner expected to grow
more corpulent. The hardy Norseman answers
my hail, and brings his tray to the door. Small
silvery whiting, gently reposing side by side;
silver-spangled herrings, with red inflamed
eyes, as if they had been taking too much, and
mouths wide open as if they had died screaming
'murder;" a bland featureless plaice or two;
a hideous John Dory. The hardy Norseman
drips with excessive rain.

"Rough night? well, rayther that way.
Hard life for them as toils all night; terrible