of a distant titter. My eye is directed to the
front room, and I perceive that I am carefully
watched by the two cubs and the very young
lady, who are now seated on a sofa which
perfectly commands my position.

I take a hasty leave, and, though I am the
first to depart, the host does not press me to
stay. He never asked me before; my visit has
proved a failure, and he will never ask me again.
His mother is still wondering what I could mean
when I made inquiries respecting her glass; the
supposed allusion to his broken nose still rankles
in the bosom of the connoisseur. During dessert
I offended another gentleman — a talkative admirer
of Garibaldi — by the stupid remark that I felt no
sympathy for Italians who sold bad looking-glasses.
Then I always allowed myself to be addressed
twice before I vouchsafed an answer, when
I would start up, as if awakened from a dream,
and generally utter a reply altogether
inappropriate to the question. Decidedly
I shall never be invited to New Fangle Villa
again. My image will fade away from the minds
of all those genteel ladies and gentlemen,
never to be recalled; it will linger longest
in the memory of the three juveniles, of
whom the males will call me a "guy," the female,
a "quiz."

I do not ride home, though my humble residence
is somewhat distant from the very genteel
district in which New Fangle Villa is situated.
In the first place, I seem to have had enough of
omnibuses; in the second, the exercise of walking
is a kind of relief to the perturbed state of my
mind. And yet there is a drizzling rain, and
the conductors of the cumbrous vehicles are
more than ordinarily solicitous for my patronage.

Some shops are still open, and whenever I
pass one of uncommon brilliancy, I make a dead
halt, and by the light of the gas take another
survey of my hideous acquisition. I am
desperately resolved to prove myself
mistaken, but I can't succeed. By the light
which is transmitted through a druggist's
crimson bottle, the terrible "sham" appears a
bsolutely appalling— a demon surrounded with
a burning atmosphere.

At last I am at home, in my bedroom on the
second floor, as I clearly ascertain by the correct
reflexion of my face in the looking-glass that
stands on my own toilette-table. I go to bed,
having, after another inspection, carefully placed
the dreadful little mirror under my pillow. Those
who wonder why I do not pitch my abominable
property out of window will never be able to
understand the relation of the bird to the
rattlesnake. I hate that loathsome mirror. I curse
the hour in which I bought it; the Italian boy
who sold it; the omnibus in which the purchase
was made. But I would sooner have cut off my
right hand, and cast it out of the window, than
I would have flung away that sixpenny imposture.
I even put my hand under my pillow before
I doze off to sleep, that I may assure myself
of its perfect safety.

I do not attain a thoroughly sound sleep; for
at the last stage of dozing, in which the boundary
line between the actual and the imaginary
is faint and indistinct, I am suddenly aroused
by a thundering single knock at the street door.
Who can it be? I am the only lodger in the
house, and I am not accustomed to receive
guests at this hour. My asthmatic old landlady
goes to bed at ten, and cheerfully allows me a
latch-key, as a talisman that will secure her own
rest from interruption. Poor old creature, she
would be frightened out of her wits did she hear
the ill-tuned noise. At all events, it must not
be repeated. I will open the door myself.

I descend the stairs barefooted, for I cannot
stay to grope about for my slippers, and when I
reach the passage, the cold of the oil-cloth enters
my soul, like the iron of Sterne's captive. The
feel of the mat is comparatively warm, but harsh
and ungrateful. I open the door, and——

Yes, I have opened the door, AND — clear in
the light of the street gas, I see before me the
owner of the face that is habitually reflected by
my hateful little glass. I can't be mistaken in
those coarse features, that air of vulgar
familiarity and low cunning. No; there stands
the original of the dreadful portrait that has
dared to thrust itself where a reflexion of my
own comely physiognomy ought to be. There
he stands; and by him stands the Italian boy.

What am I to surmise from this visit? Has
the Original — as I will briefly call him — has the
Original already seized the Italian as the purloiner
of his reflected countenance, and does he
now come upon me as the receiver of the stolen
property? Is this a sort of Peter Schlemihl
affair, with an infusion of the Old Bailey?

The Original lays his hand on my shoulder,
firmly, ponderously, as though he would press
me through the door mat, and in a hoarse voice
he says,

"Now then, governor, I think you wanted
New Fangle Villa?"

The whole scene is changed, save that the
Original and the Italian boy are still plainly in
my presence. I am in an omnibus, occupying
the corner next the window; the Original is
the conductor, who has just wakened me out
of a sound sleep, and the Italian boy, as his
particular friend, has been blessed with the
privilege of standing on the step.

The glass is in my hand, open — that, at least,
is no illusion. I look into it; my own proper really
good-looking face is reflected; a little spoiled,
perhaps, by an expression of anxiety and alarm,
but still my own delightful countenance. These
expressions are not to be attributed to inordinate
vanity but to the rapture which every man has
a right to feel when the extraordinary good
fortune befals him of finding his own face when
he thinks he has lost it.

"Now then, governor, I think you wanted
New Fangle Villa," repeats the conductor,
somewhat impatiently.

"How long have I slept?" I ask, hurriedly.

"Why you dropped asleep a' most as soon as
you had bought that 'ere harticle of this 'ere
party. You nodded over it like."

With a little reflection — of the right sort—