portion of the year. The architect of Lumbago-
terrace, therefore, "threw up" the great Corinthianfacade in the centre of Lumbago-terrace,
by which he succeeded in darkening the four
centre houses of the row, letting into the drawing
and dining rooms of the others the light of
heaven. But he remedied this intolerable defect,
by "throwing forward" a couple of massive
comer buildings at each end of the terrace;
themselves kept from the sun's glare by the
centre pile, and immensely helping in their turn
to overshadow the receding portions of the
wings, and preserving them from the unendurable
annoyance of the solar rays.

In one of the projecting extremities of the line
of Lumbago-terrace, is situated the room in which
your Informant ordinarily works at his History
of Space. The window before which his desk
is placed commands the whole extent of the
terrace from end to end, and he is thus enabled
to rake that row of houses completely, as from
a tower of observation. It was on the morning
after Christmas-day, then, that, seated at his
desk before this window, his attention—which
will sometimes wander to external things—was
caught by certain phenomena, which ne now
proposes to describe.

A group, consisting of two tall men and a
short one, all very seedy, enters the terrace at
its western extremity, which is that farthest
from the position occupied by your informant.
The men, after loitering undecidedly for a short
time in front of the last house (No. 20), separate;
the two tall men advance to the house door,
and knock a single knock, while the short man
stands at the edge of the pavement, with his
back to the others, and one foot projecting over
the side of the kerbstone. He also chews a
straw, and every now and then looks round
furtively and uneasily, to see how his companions
are getting on.

They are getting on particularly well, one
would think. The door opens, and one of the
men, taking a step forward, asserts a foot upon
the mat, and speaks to the housemaid; the
other man leans against the door-post; and
the short man, on the kerbstone, examines the
sky and the prospects of the weather, and tries
to look as if he did not belong to the party. The
door is now closed, and the man who stepped
upon the mat, is shut in, while his mate remains
upon the step, and in his turn becomes interested
in the state of the weather; also in the condition
of his nails; also in the paint upon the entrance
pillars. Very suddenly, the door is again opened,
and the man who had been enclosed drops out
upon the steps, with an appearance of immense
relief. Immediately upon this the short man
gives up his fiction of not belonging to the
party, and a secret conference takes place.
This over, the party once more separate, and
the two tall men ascend the steps of No. 19.
Everything happens as before. No. 18 in like
order. This routine is performed at every house.
The only thing which is at all subject to change
being the demeanour of the men when engaged
in consultation; which sometimes, leaves them
brisk and cheerful, but sometimes deeply and
sulkily despondent.

If this first deputation was of a bewildering
nature, what were the feelings of your
informant when a second and a third group,
each consisting of three seedy ones, appeared
in Lumbago-terrace, and went through a series
of performances precisely similar to those
engaged in by the first comers. What! in
every case three men; never more, never
less; in every case two who did the work, and
one who stood upon the kerbstone and
ignored them while they did it? In every case
a conference after each call? In every case that
conference marked by great briskness or deep-
gloom and stagnation? In every case? No, not
in every case—once, a clarionet, a trombone,
and an ophicleide.

The deputation bearing these instruments
threw a perfect blaze of light on the mystery.
The waits! Christmas-boxes. These groups
of diffident and embarrassed personages were
composed of your regular dustmen, and your
united scavengers, and your lamplighters
embodied into a company (limited), and lastly,
of your incorporated waits. The waits whom
you hear at a distance as you come back from
Christmas parties, and whom, gradually
approaching as you walk home, you come upon
suddenly under a lee-wall standing in such
shelter as they can get, all looking different
ways, with green baize instrument-wrappers
over their arms, braying out their sad souls in
bleak discordancy.

Oh, the waits, the cruel waits, are they worst
far off or near? They sink your soul down
when they play under your window. They go
into the next street and sink it lower. Matters
are no better when they get into the next street
but one; and, when they have reached the square
round the corner, and the notes of the trombone
at intervals alone are audible, it is a great question
whether you are not worse off still; whether
your woes are not more aggravated than ever.

The waits were outside, expectant of a Christmas-
box. The ophicleide had placed his
instrument, across an angle of the area railings
appertaining to this writer's abode while he beat
his breast to wann it; the trombone was on the
mat in the passage; and the clarionet, with that
cheery tube under his arm, was playing that
important kerbstone part which it has been
mentioned was discharged in every case of a Christmas-
box application by one member of the corps.

After sending out a shilling to the trombone
in the passage—who diffused so much
cold that it was worth the money in fuel to get
him promptly out of the house—that your
Informant began to speculate on the question
whether the Christmas-box system does not,
in some of its aspects, partake of the nature of
a nuisance. He endeavoured to avoid the
subject, but it pursued him, go where he would.

That night, and the next, and the next after,
as the writer was returning home, he
happened to observe a general tendency in
certain seedy individuals to oscillate in their walk,