evening parties with beef sandwiches for supper;
chairs and sofas covered with American leather
cloth, and a general sitting down to tea—with
shrimps when in season, otherwise "creases"—
at five o'clock. In fact, Twopenny Town, from
the Russell-square point of view, is a monstrously
absurd place; a laughable place altogether.

There are some persons so keenly conscious
of the ridicule which attaches to Twopenny
Town, that they will never own that they live
there. When Russell-square asks them where
they dwell, they artfully avoid reproach by saying,
"Up the Park way." When Russell-square
and Twopenny Town start together from the
West-end, bound for home, and Russell-square
says, "Which way do you go?" Twopenny Town
cautiously replies, "Northward," I really believe
there are people of genteel aspirations who
sneak in and out of Twopenny Town every day
as if Twopenny Town were a wild beasts' lair
or the hiding-place of a thief. When Russell-square
happens to be in the neighbourhood, and
catches a resident in the act of being there
treading in an accustomed manner the pavements
of Twopenny Town, the resident immediately
stammers out an apology for his misconduct,
and says he has been to visit a person
"up that way." Perfectly conscious of all this,
and even admitting the ungenteel character of
the quarter, I am nevertheless willing publicly
to own—not that, when I proceed towards my
home, I "go northward." or that my residence
is "up the Park way"—but plainly, in a straight-
forward manner, that I live and treasure my
Lares and Penates in the very heart of
Twopenny Town. I am not ashamed of it. On the
contrary, I glory in it.

You—I am addressing Russell-square—have
no idea what a wonderful place Twopenny Town
is. It is such a very wonderful place, and so
little known to the haunts of genteel civilisation
in which you move, that I am tempted to
write an account of my travels and residence in
the region, to be published by Mr. Murray in a
thick volume printed in large type, with marginal
references, foot-notes, and a map.

Looking from my window at this moment, I
have a full view of all the wonders of science
and art at one glance. That great invention,
steam, displays itself in all its remarkable
applications to the purposes of man. I see
railway trains incessantly rattling along, tearing
madly after each other, and apparently playing
at follow-my-leader among the chimneys;
underneath I see a steam barge puffing up the
canal like an amphibious locomotive; I see also
the mast of a ship, and, above all, the electric
telegraph ruling the sky, like a sheet of blue-wove
Bath post, for music. Right and left,
photographers meet my view, exhausting the
beams of the summer sun, and, as it appears to
me, bringing on winter prematurely, in their
endeavours to fix the lineaments of the Twopenny
Townian on slips of card, at the charge of ten
shillings a dozen. My wonderful prospect takes
in any number of yellow omnibuses that go
"all the way" for twopence; any number of red
ditto, that go all the way for a penny; three
pastrycooks, ready and willing to execute wedding
orders at five minutes' notice; four undertakers,
equally ready and willing to execute
funeral ditto, with the same promptitude, at
charges to suit any length of pocket and any
depth of grief. When I add to this an emporium
for the supply of claret at twelve shillings
a dozen, I think you will allow that my
view is a most comprehensive one, and that the
wonders of nature, art, science, and commerce,
are concentrated in Twopenny Town in a tableau
well adapted for the frontispiece of a school
edition of the Wonders of the World. Stay! I
forgot to mention a figure of Britannia on the
top of a public-house, and a lion couchant on
the summit of a brewery. When a balloon
happens to travel this way, my view may be said
to embrace the whole circle of the sciences. If
Zadkiel should be in need of a good telling
hieroglyphic, let him come up and take a
sketch from my window. There was a fine
chance for him the other day, when the British
lion was asleep on the top of the brewery,
Britannia was having her shield taken down for
repairs, and a locomotive engine was taking a
leap from the viaduct into the street below. It
was a deeply impressive portent of grief to
Britannia.

I might say that Twopenny Town is in the
perpetual enjoyment of all the luxuries of the
season. What is there that heart or hand could
desire that it does not possess? Will any one
be good enough to mention the article?
Aristocracy? Why, there is a lady in Full-Moon-
street who is the rightful heir to the throne, and
has papers to prove it, if anybody would only
look at them. This Royal Personage, coming
down my street in a yellow satin gown, with a
troop of boys at her heels, puts a touch to the
hieroglyphic which leaves nothing to be desired,
except, perhaps, an eclipse of the sun.

The drama? Are not all our back drawing-
rooms stages? all our young men and
women merely players, having their exits and
their entrances by the same one door on the
landing at the top of the stairs among the
cups and saucers? I can assure you, when
we engage in private theatricals, we do the
thing in style; print the programmes on
scented note-paper with embossed borders, and
get up all our pieces with appropriate scenery
and the correct costumes. Our company never
had a break down but once, and that was
when we played Box and Cox at the Theatre
Royal Fourteen Melpomene Terrace. Jobbins,.
who played Box, was a great stickler for the
realities, and would insist upon having a real
fire, and a real mutton-chop to throw out of
window. It certainly was very natural and
effective to see Jobbins, as Box, come in and
chuck a real chop, frizzling from the fire, out of
a real window into a real street; but,
unfortunately, a crusty old gentleman with a white
hat on his head was passing at the moment, and
the chop fell right on the crown of the hat, and
printed off an impression of itself with the