AT THE BAR.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "A CRUISE UPON WHEELS," &c. &c.
CHAPTER XVIII. SOMETHING STRANGE.

THE outsides of our places of abode tell no
tales. As we walk down a street in the silent
night, and pass the dark shut-up houses that
seem so quiet and secure, we forget how much
may be going on in each one of them of which
the outside gives no sort of indication. In one,
there is sickness deadly—sickness—which can
have but one termination. In another, the
sufferer is writhing in intolerable pain—to-morrow,
an eminent surgeon will arrive there to perform
a terrible operation. His carriage will draw up
here by the kerbstone, and he will go in at that
door to do his fearful work. Here, again, is a
house where care has taken up his abode, and
the master lies awake thinking of his pecuniary
difficulties, and of all those children who are to
be provided for and brought up. That light in
the window yonder comes from a room in which
a young man is drawing his last consumptive
breath; and that other further down, from the
chamber of a young girl, who is to be married
tomorrow, and who is sitting up to write to an
especial friend the last letter which she will sign
with her maiden name.

But not alone do the outsides of our houses
fail to tell what is going on within. Even
inside, the inhabitants of one room may be entirely
ignorant of what is going on in another, and that
other close at hand. You go to an inn to pass
the night, everything looks bright and gay, the
waiters bustle about to execute your commands,
the gas is kindled in the corridors, the fire burns
brightly in your bedroom. In the next chamber
to yours there lies a dead body waiting for
interment. Further down, in the same corridor, a
newly-born child has just entered on the scene.
You know nothing of these things. If matters
are going well with you, and your mind is free,
you sleep quietly, and enjoy your rest. If you
have some personal trouble, you are restless and
depressed, but it is not because of the death, or
the birth, that you are despondent or cheerful.

So was it in the house in Beaumont-street.
The night passed quietly, and the hours
succeeded each other in undisturbed silence; and
then the dull, cold, London morning came, with
a stillness, at first, almost greater than that of
night, and showing a surprising emptiness in
the street, which also wore a curious bare-swept
look, which it had not at other times.

The policeman, in his beat, came to the corner
of Beaumont-street, and looked up it and down
it, and slowly smote his gloved hands together,
for it was somewhat cold. He was not wanted.
There was nothing going on, and there were no
servant-maids about at this time to talk to. A
very ill-looking cat was picking its steps across
the street. He looked, and was, a bad subject,
no doubt; a cat which was up all night as a habit,
and made unearthly noises under people's
windows. But it was impossible to take him up for
that, so the policeman only clapped his hands
louder than before to startle the beast, which,
however, he did not succeed in doing, the cat
being a wily London one, and a sufficiently accurate
judge of distances to know that the policeman
was too far off to do him an injury. If it
had been a boy with a stone, I don't say—that
would have been different.

The policeman and the cat—types, respectively,
of order and disorder, of respectability
and scampishness—had the street to themselves
at this time. Soon they had both disappeared,
the cat down his own area steps, the policeman
round the corner on the way to other parts of
his beat, and the street was bare again. Then
an empty cab came rumbling and rattling along
on its way to the stables, the horse dead-beat,
stumbling at every step, the driver more than
half asleep, but mechanically giving the reins a
jerk at every stumble. After this, there was
total stagnation again, till the inevitable little
man, who is going somewhere early, appeared.
Of course, he came, as he always does, briskly up
the area steps of one of the houses, closing the
gate carefully after him, stepping along with
exceeding briskness and cheerfulness, and carrying
a small, glazed, black bag in his hand. He was,
in due time, succeeded by a servant of early
habits, who opened the door of one of the houses,
and, throwing the door-mat out upon the steps,
retired once more within the house. This is a
proceeding much favoured by the sisterhood, and
is suggestive of vigorous cleansings to be carried
on inside. Perhaps, it does instead of them.

By the time that the early servant has executed
this performance, the day, though still in its
infancy, may be said to have begun. More early
servants soon begin to throw out more doormats