all foot passengers' rights of way and other
privileges. Yet who is there but must cheerfully
give place, and step round into the road as a
thing of course? for there is no such buffo,
quaint, racy, and most diverting class as these
Ischvok's (?) pilots of the eternal city—
Leporellos of the box. They have the most
curious affinity to brethren of the same guild
who "direct" jaunting-cars far away down
broad Sackville-street, Dublin. From the Corso
to Sackville-street, from the august to the
familiar, and yet the grand column round which
runs spirally an embroidered belt of metal, is
a common cab-stand. They are true
"gossoons," and invite you rollickingly with the
bare twinkle of their eye, making that
feature work on you persuasively. Even as his
brother of Sackville-street, he will put eloquence
into the very top of his whip, and will seduce
you with a light joke. Do you stop or hesitate
at a street corner doubtful of the road? The
horizon is on the instant clouded with wheeled
cars converging on you as upon a focus. "Olà!
Ho!" "Ecco, signor!" "Hi! hi!" "Voitu,
m'sieu?" "Tak a coatch, sair?" is the Babel of
invitation showered on the inoffensive stranger,
Leporello showing his white teeth all the while
from under his moustache pleasantly, gyrating
round you adroitly, cutting out his neighbour
dexterously, making his highly-trained
performing animal describe circles, vehicle and all,
of the smallest conceivable diameter. The boxes
seem of a sudden, peopled with Murillo boys.
They invite you in with smiles, they awe you
humorously with their horses' heads, they go
on performing surpassing feats of drivership.
There is no help for it—you must ascend; two
Pauls—tenpence—is not appalling even to
insolvency, and your walking virtue is broken down
with a calembour in mellow Italian. So when
making proposals to a fierce Ischvok, bearded
like a Calmuck for a pilgrimage to Villa Doria,
and the Calmuck being gently remonstrated
with for what seems an exorbitant demand, is
it possible to resist his sudden adaptation of
the laws of political economy to the situation?
"Hark you, signor," Calmuck whispers,
gutturally, and speaking fast, "I am extortionate,
but with a purpose. I demand more than my
brothers. But why?" (Calmuck here folds
his arms, and pauses for a reply.) "See
these steeds, these noble generous Arabians,
they will fly the whole way. They cannot be
held in. They will do the hour's work in half
an hour. I shall be the loser. I shall be
ruined in the end. But what matter? Enter,
signor!" With Leporello we must deal lightly,
for the sake of his sly tricks. But for the
hermit from the cell in Vauxhall Gardens, who
hangs about hotel entrances in a very fair
theatrical suit, and who has his cord and serge and
snuffy beard and other appointments got up
with tolerable appropriateness, I have no
manner of toleration. In very plain speech, I
look on him as an unmitigated humbug. He
is an amphibious bore; and being neither
secular fish, flesh, nor fowl, nor, at the same
time, good ecclesiastical red herring, I may
so deal with him without irreverence. He
is much grimed, very shiny and greasy, and
entreats your alms with so smug a smirk and
air of confidential sanctity, that I am always
inclined to tell him my mind roughly, and ask
why he has left the appropriate hut on the
mountain where respectable regular hermits are
always to be found at home by the faithful
when they call.

I find Plebs standing behind my chair at
great hostelries, proffering dishes and
disguised as a waiter. His heart is not in the business,
and he is to the full as languid in his calling
as are the epicurean mendicants, navvies, and
fishermen just described, in theirs; in fact, he
is one of that company, thinly varnished over
and disguised in the white neckcloth and jacket
of the profession. Grattez-le—scrape him with
your nail (figuratively)—and the old sluggard's
skin will show through. An hour out of
employment, and he will be blinking and dozing
on the church steps. Dolce far niente is tattooed
upon his wrist also. In the half-hour's lull
before the din and flurry of the monster dinner
sets in, I see him and all his fellows out in the
sun, hanging round the great porch; some,
relishing the fragrant cigar; some, chattering and
grimacing; but most, by preference, dozing
profoundly. Anon the bells ring, the sleepers
awake, eyes are rubbed, and the ministering
elves who bear round the baked meats yawn
over you profoundly. Oftentimes the proffered
delicacy waits at your elbow, disembowelled
long since by your hands; but the ministrant's
thoughts are far away, feebly scanning that
bella donna Inglese, who sits far down the table.
You call to him, and he does not come bounding
to you like a ball of caoutchouc, rather walks up
with a certain stateliness, and, learning your
pleasure, says it is well. He is utterly Bœotian
in matters of direction, and will deal in wretched
argot, which he calls French. I am with a poor
sick gentleman, on whom some of the unwholesome
malaria vapours have settled heavily, and
who is feebly bespeaking an invalid's apology
for a dinner. Bœotic waiter stands before him.
"Just the wing of a fowl, cameriere," says the
poor sick gentleman, with a strange trusting faith
that in the hostelry economy there is room for
little sick-room delicacies which the indisposed
may "pick;" " I think I could manage the
wing, with a bit of fried ham, and an orange."
"The signor will take soup, of course?"
"Soup!" shrieks sick man; "avaunt! you make
me ill." "At what hour?" asks Bœotian.
"Four o'clock." "It is well, signor." Bœotian
retires. Sick gentleman protests that Bœotian
is an extra thorn in his sorrows, a hindrance to
his being made whole. Reappears Bœotian.
"Did the signor say he would take soup?
Maître d'hôtel desires to know." "No!"
shrieks sick gentleman. "It is well," Bœotian
says again, retiring; "the signor shall be served
punctually at six. "Four, four!" gasps sick
gentleman, resignedly. The Roman waiter is
not trim and smart, like his kind of other lands,