of them catches my eye. "Ain't it beautiful?"
says my brother of the mob, pointing with a
deeply-curved thumb at the silver and glass on
the table. "And sich lots to drink!" Artless
street-innocent!  unsophisticated costermonger!
he actually envies his suffering superiors inside!

The imaginary view of that ghost of myself
sitting at the table has such a bewildering effect
on my mind, that I find it necessary to walk
away a little, and realise the gratifying certainty
that I am really a free man, walking the streets
in my airy paletot, and not the melting victim
of Pilkington and Society. I retire gently over
the pavement. How tenderly the kind night
air toys with the tails of my gossamer garment,
flutters about my bare neck, and lifts from time
to time the ribbon-ends on my cool straw hat!
Oh, my much-injured host, what would you not
give to be leaning against a lamp-post, in loose
jean trousers (as I lean now), and meeting the
breeze lazily as it wantons round the corner of
the street! Oh, feverish-sleeping Soward—oh,
glittering Ripsher—oh, twin-strangers among
the guests, dabbing your damp foreheads with
duplicate pocket-handkerchiefs—oh, everybody
but Pilkington (in whose sufferings I rejoice),
are there any mortal blessings you all covet
more dearly, at this moment, than my vagabond
freedom of locomotion, and my disgracefully
undressed condition of body!   Oh, Society, when
the mid-year has come, and the heavenly fires of
Summer are all a-blaze, what unutterable oppressions
are inflicted in thy white and pitiless name!

With this apostrophe (in the manner of
Madame Roland)  I saunter lazily back to my post
of observation before the dining-room windows.
So!  so!  the wretched gentlemen are getting
up—they can endure it no longer—they are
going to change from a lower room that is hot
to an upper room that is hotter. Alterations
have taken place, since I saw them last, in the
heart-rending pantomime of their looks and
actions. The two strangers have given up
dabbing their foreheads in despair, and are looking
helplessly at the pictures—as if Art could make
them cooler! Jenkins and Wapshare have
shifted occupations. This time, it is Wapshare
who is longingly looking at his watch, and
Jenkins who is using his finger-glass; into the
depths of which I detect him yawning furtively,
under cover of moistening his lips. Sleepy
Soward has been woke up, and sits steaming
and staring with protuberant eyes and swollen
cheeks. The glittering face of Ripsher reflects
the chandelier, as if his skin was made of glass.
Execrable Pilkington continues to talk. My
host of the feeble back is propped against the
sideboard, and smiles piteously as he indicates
to his miserable guests the way up-stairs. They
obey him, and retire from the room in slow
funereal procession. How strangely well I
feel; how unaccountably strong and cool and
blandly composed in mind and body!—Hoi!
hoi!   hoi!  out of the way there! Lord bless
your honour! crash! bang!   Here is the first
carriage bursting in among us like a shell; here
are the linkmen scattering us off the pavement,
and receiving Society with all the honours of
the street. The Soirée is beginning. The
scorching hundreds are coming to squeeze the
last faint relics of fresh air out at the drawing-
room windows. How strangely well I feel;
how unaccountably strong and cool and blandly
composed in mind and body!

I once more join my worthy mob-brethren; I
add one to the joyous human lane which watches
the guests as they go in, and which has not got
such a thing as a dress-coat on either side of it.
I am not in the least afraid of being recognised
—for who would suppose it possible that I could
conduct myself in this disgraceful manner?
Ha!  the first guests are well known to me.
Sir Aubrey Yollop, Lady Yollop, the two Misses
Yollop.  "What time shall we order the
carriage?"   "Infernal nuisance coming at all this
hot weather—get away as soon as we can—
carriage wait."—Crash!  bang!  More guests known
to me.  Doctor and Mrs. Gripper, and Mr.
Julius Gripper.  "What time shall we order the
carriage?"   "How the devil should I know?"
(Heat has made the doctor irritable)  "The
carriages are ordered, sir, at one."   "I can't
and won't stand it, Mrs. Gripper, till that time
—cursed tomfoolery giving parties at all, this
hot weather—carriage at twelve."   Crash! bang!
Strangers to me, this time. A little dapper
man, fanning himself with his hat;  a colossal
old woman, with a red-hot garnet tiara and a
scorching scarlet scarf;  a slim, cool, smiling,
serenely stupid girl, in that sensible half-naked
costume which gives the ladies such an advantage
over us at summer evening parties. More
difficulty with these, and the next dozen
arrivals, about ordering the carriage—more
complaints of the misery of going out—nobody
sharp enough to apply the obvious remedy of
going home again—all equally ready to bemoan
their hard fate and to rush on it voluntarily at
the same time. I look up, as I make these
reflections, to the drawing-room story. Wherever
the windows are open, they are stopped up by
gowns; wherever the windows are shut, Society
expresses itself on them in the form of steam.
It is the Black Hole at Calcutta, ornamented
and lit up. It is a refinement of slow torture
unknown to the Inquisition and the North
American savages. And the name of it in
England is Pleasure—Pleasure when we offer it to
others, which is not so very wonderful;
Pleasure, equally, when we accept it ourselves,
which is perfectly amazing.

While I am pondering over Pleasure, as Society
understands it, I am suddenly confronted
by Duty, also as Society understands it, in the
shape of a policeman. He comes to clear the
pavement, and he fixes me with his eye. I am
the first and foremost vagabond whom he thinks
it desirable to dismiss. To my delight, he
singles me out, before my friend's house, on the
very threshold of the door, through which I have
been invited to pass in the honourable capacity
of guest, as the first obstruction to be removed.
"Come, I say, you there—move on!"   Yes,
Mr. Policeman, with pleasure. Other men, in