examined, first, the writing-table and said, " Mine;"
then, the easy-chair, and said, "Mine;"  then, the
bookcase, and said, "Mine;" then turned up a
corner of the carpet, and said, " Mine;" in a
word, inspected every item of furniture from the
cellar, in succession, and said, " Mine!"
Towards the end of this investigation, Mr. Testator
perceived that he was sodden with liquor, and
that the liquor was gin. He was not unsteady
with gin, either in his speech or carriage; but
he was stiff with gin in both particulars.

Mr. Testator was in a dreadful state, for
(according to his making out of the story) the
possible consequences of what he had done in
recklessness and hardihood, flashed upon him in
their fulness for the first time. When they
had stood gazing at one another for a little
while, he tremulously began:

"Sir, I am conscious that the fullest
explanation, compensation, and restitution, are your
due. They shall be yours. Allow me to
entreat that, without temper, without even natural
irritation on vour part, we may have a
little——-"

"Drop of something to drink," interposed
the stranger. " I am agreeable."

Mr. Testator had intended to say, " a little
quiet conversation," but with great relief of
mind adopted the amendment. He produced a
decanter of gin, and was bustling about for
hot water and sugar, when he found that his
visitor had already drunk half of the decanter's
contents. With hot water and sugar the visitor
drank the remainder before he had been an hour
in the chambers by the chimes of the church
of Saint Mary in the Strand; and during the
process he frequently whispered to himself, "Mine!"

The gin gone, and Mr. Testator wondering
what was to follow it, the visitor rose and said,
with increased stiffness, " At what hour of the
morning, sir, will it be convenient?" Mr.
Testator hazarded, " At ten?" " Sir," said the visitor,
" at ten, to the moment, I shall be here." He
then contemplated Mr. Testator somewhat at
leisure, and said, " God bless you! How is
your wife?" Mr. Testator (who never had a wife)
replied with much feeling, " Deeply anxious, poor
soul, but otherwise well." The visitor thereupon
turned and went away, and fell twice in going
downstairs. From that hour he was never heard
of. Whether he was a ghost, or a spectral
illusion of conscience, or a drunken man who had
no business there, or the drunken rightful owner
of the furniture, with a transitory gleam of
memory; whether he got safe home, or had no
home to get to; whether he died of liquor on
the way, or lived in liquor ever afterwards; he
never was heard of more. This was the story,
received with the furniture and held to be as
substantial, by its second possessor in an upper
set of chambers in grim Lyons Inn.

It is to be remarked of chambers in general,
that they must have been built for chambers, to
have the right kind of loneliness. You may
make a great dwelling-house very lonely, by
isolating suites of rooms and calling them
chambers, but you cannot make the true kind of
loneliness. In dwelling-houses, there have been
family festivals; children have grown in them,
girls have bloomed into women in them, courtships
and marriages have taken place in them.
True chambers never were young, childish,
maidenly; never had dolls in them, or rocking-
horses, or christenings, or betrothals, or little
coffins. Let Gray's Inn identify the child who
first touched hands and hearts with Robinson
Crusoe, in any one of its many " sets," and that
child's little statue, in white marble with a golden
inscription, shall be at its service, at my cost and
charge, as a drinking fountain for the spirit, to
freshen its thirsty square. Let Lincoln's produce
from all its houses, a twentieth of the procession
derivable from any dwelling-house one twentieth
of its age, of fair young brides who married for
love and hope, not settlements, and all the
Vice-Chancellors shall thenceforward be kept in nose-
gays for nothing, on application at this office. It
is not denied that on the terrace of the Adelphi,
or in any of the streets of that subterranean-
stable-haunted spot, or about Bedford-row, or
James-street of that ilk (a grewsome place), or
anywhere among the neighbourhoods that have
done flowering and have run to seed, you may find
Chambers replete with the accommodations of
Solitude, Closeness, and Darkness, where you may
be as low spirited as in the genuine article, and
might be as easily murdered, with the placid
reputation of having merely gone down to the
sea-side. But the many waters of life did run musical
in those dry channels once;—among the Inns,
never. The only popular legend known in relation
to any one of the dull family of Inns, is a dark
Old Bailey whisper concerning Clement's, and
importing how the black creature who holds the
sun dial there, was a negro who slew his master
and built the dismal pile out of the contents of
his strong-box—for which architectural offence
alone he ought to have been condemned to live
in it. But what populace would waste fancy
upon such a place, or on New Inn, Staple Inn,
Barnard's Inn, or any of the shabby crew?

The genuine laundress, too, is an institution
not to be had in its entirety out of and away
from the genuine Chambers. Again, it is not
denied that you may be robbed elsewhere.
Elsewhere you may have—for money—dishonesty,
drunkenness, dirt, laziness, and profound
incapacity. But the veritable shining-red-faced,
shameless laundress; the true Mrs. Sweeney—in
figure, colour, texture, and smell, like the old
damp family umbrella; the tiptop complicated
abomination of stockings, spirits, bonnet, limpness,
looseness, and larceny, is only to be drawn a
t the fountain-head. Mrs. Sweeney is beyond the
reach of individual art. It requires the united
efforts of several men to ensure that great
result, and it is only developed in perfection under
an Honourable Society and in an Inn of Court.