"You'll kill the man!" said Pleasure, beginning
to get angry. "You know what all work and
no play makes Jack."

"His name isn't Jack, and if it were, what
then?" retorted Duty. "Do you know what all
play and no work makes a man, or rather what
it leaves him? A purposeless idiot, a shambling
loafing idler, gaping through his day, and wasting
other people's precious time. Ah! if some of
your followers, 'votaries of pleasure,' as they're
called, both male and female, had some permanent
occupation for only a few hours of the day,
the sin, and crime, and misery that now degrade
the world might be reduced by at least one-
half!"

"Don't talk of my followers, if you please, old
lady!" shouted Pleasure, highly indignant. "No
need to say that none are 'allowed' in your case,
I should think. With your horribly stern ideas
you do far more mischief than I. Ever holding
you before their eyes, men slave and slave until
such wretched life as is left them terminates
at middle age; seen through your glasses, life is
a huge sandy desert, watered by the tears of the
wretched pilgrims, but yielding no blade of hope,
no flower of freshness. I hate such cant!"

"Madam!" said Duty, with a grave courtesy,
"your language is low. I leave you."

"And I leave you, you old frump!" And both
guardian angels floated away: Pleasure, as she
passed, bending over me, and murmuring in my
ear, "You'll go to Ascot!"

But when I came in-doors and examined the
contents of my cash-box, I found that the waters
were very low indeed; when I looked on my
desk and saw about fifteen written slips of paper
(my great work on Logarithms) on the right-
hand side, and about five hundred perfectly blank
and virgin slips on the left; when I thought of
the bills that were "coming on," and of the bills
that had recently passed by without having been
"met," I determined to stick steadily to my work,
and to give up all idea of the races. In this
state of mind I remained all night, and—shutting
my eyes to the exquisite beauty of the day—all
the early morning, and in which state of mind I
still continued, when, immediately after breakfast,
I was burst in upon by Oppenhart—of
course waving a ticket.

It is a characteristic of Oppenhart's always to
be waving tickets! A good fellow with nothing
particular to do (he is in a government office), he
has hit upon an excellent method of filling up his
leisure by becoming a member of every imaginable
brotherhood, guild, society, or chapter, for
the promotion of charity and the consumption
of good dinners. What proud position he holds
in the grand masonic body I am unable positively
to state. On being asked, he replies that he is a—
something alphabetical, I'm afraid to state what,
but a very confusing combination of letters,—
then he is an Odd Fellow, and an Old Friend,
and a Loving Brother, and a Rosicrucian, and a
Zoroaster, and a Druid, and a Harmonious Owl,
and an Ancient Buffalo. I made this latter
discovery myself, for having been invited by a
convivial friend to dine at the annual banquet of his
"herd," I found there Oppenhart, radiant in apron
and jewel and badge, worshipped by all around.
He has drawers full of aprons, ribbons, stars, and
"insignia," he is always going to initiate a novice,
or to pass a degree, or to instal an arch, or to be
steward at a festival, and he is always waving
tickets of admission to charitable dinners, where
you do not enjoy yourself at all, and have to
subscribe a guinea as soon as the cloth is drawn. So
that when I saw the card in his hand I made up
my mind emphatically to decline, and commenced
shaking my head before he could utter a word.

"Oppenhart, once for all, I WON'T! The
Druids sit far too late, and there's always a
difference of opinion among the Harmonious
Owls. I've got no money to spare, and I won't
go."

"Well, but you've been boring me for this
ticket for the last three years!" says Oppenhart.
"Don't you know what to-day is? it's Innocents'
Day."

I thought the Innocents were some new brotherhood
to which he had attached himself, and I
rebelled again, but he explained that he meant
thus metaphorically to convey that that day was
the anniversary meeting of the charity children
in St. Paul's, a gathering at which I had often
expressed a wish to be present, and for which he
had procured me a ticket. "Got it from Brother
Pugh, J.G.W., Bumblepuppy Lodge of
Yorkshire, No. 1, who is on the committee; don't
tell Barker I gave it you, or I should never know
peace again."

Captain Barker is Oppenhart's shadow, dresses
at him, follows him into his charities, his dinners,
and his clubs, and though but a faint reflex of
the great original, yet, owing to the possession
of a swaggering manner and a bow-wowy voice,
so patronises his Mentor that the latter's life is
a burden to him.

I promised not to tell Barker, I took the
ticket, I decided to go, and I went. Even Duty
could not have urged much against such a visit,
the mode of transit to which was the sixpenny
omnibus! My card was admissible between ten
and twelve, but it was scarcely eleven when I
reached St. Paul's, and I thought I would amuse
myself by watching the arriving company.
Carriages were pouring into the churchyard thick
and fast, a few hired flys, but principally
private vehicles, sedate in colour, heavy in build,
filled with smug gentlemen, smugger ladies
and demure daughters, driven by sedate coachmen,
and conveying serious footmen behind,
drawn by horses which had a Claphamite air
utterly different from the prancing tits of the
Parks—sober easy-going animals, laying well to
collar, and doing the work cut out for them in
all seriousness and gravity. Preceded by beadles,
gorgeous creatures in knobbly gowns and cockades
like black fans in their hats (who, however,
were so utterly unable to make any impression
on the crowd that they had themselves to enlist