exposed, that the fate of country cousins and
foreigners becomes additionally clear. In our
case we took tickets for viewing the whole of
the interior of the cathedral, and bought the
only guide-book offered us. The seller, and
those whom I must call his accomplices, were
well aware that the work they sold would be
insufficient for my purpose, and deliberately
suppressed the fact of there being a more
complete one until, as they thought, they had me
at disadvantage, and I was under the necessity
of buying both. "No, sir, not the least difficulty
in getting the sixpence from the other
man, for this one, sir, thank you, sir. I'll
arrange it with 'im, sir, thank you!"—all came
after the discovery concerning my public duties
and possible public strictures, and were as
completely the reverse of the aggressive insolence of
the first refusal as affirmative and negative can
well be. I am sent up alone to look at the
clock and the bell, and don't in the least
understand either. A clockmaker is winding up the
first, and informs me it is hard work, and always
takes an hour. The clapper of the second and
a portion of its sides are just visible through
an aperture in some boards above me, and
after craning my neck until it aches, I decide
that I have beheld more exciting spectacles,
and think myself scantily repaid for the
labour of ascending one hundred additional
steps. The outside of seven thousand volumes,
a fine oil portrait of Bishop Compton, under
whom the cathedral was built, some oak carving
by Gibbons, and a flooring made up of pieces of
oak inlaid without nails or pegs, are shown me in
the library. A glance down the geometrical
staircase, "the hundred and ten steps of which
hang without visible support, all resting upon
the bottom step," and we take leave of our
guide, who has by this time put on a look of
sheepish guilelessness, as of a simple man whose
life is devoted to others, and to whom mercenary
or other unworthy motives are unknown. Up
more steps of the same spacious staircase as
before and we come upon a shrivelled little mummy
of a man whose life is spent in whispering, and
who seems to have become chronically hoarse in
consequence. His neck and chin are hidden in
a huge muffler, which has been white, but is
now of dubious hue, and his frame is hidden
in a black surtout which buttons across the
chest and has an air of being slept in. This
old man is of a flue-y habit of body, and when
he coughs or wheezes, minute particles, such as
float in the air after the shaking of a feather bed,
exude from his clothes and envelop him in a halo
of fluff. He is eminently polite. "Walk in, sir—
walk into the gallery, if you please," is given
with a courtly bow, as if doing the honours of the
whispering gallery of St. Paul's were not a thing
to be undertaken lightly; and when we have
walked in, the wave of the arm with which we are
sent on, and the "Stop where you are now, sir,
if you please," when we are half round, are
suggestive of a faded shabby royalty, as of some
stage-monarch who has fallen upon evil times.
Forgetting the speciality of the place, we turn
round to see who is following us so closely, and
find we are deceived by our own echo. We
next listen to "This church was built, &c.," in
the old man's shrillest whisper, with polite
enjoyment and a keen sense of relief when it is
over. A young couple from the country, and, as
I guess, recently from the altar, are now received
by the old man with the same formula which
greeted me, and are in their turn waved to the
opposite side of the gallery. I watch that
couple. He is a gawky, high-shouldered, red-
whiskered, raw-boned, healthy, happy monster
of one-and-twenty, whose brown coat looks as
if it had been made for a deformed relative of
stunted growth; whose hat tilts itself at the
back of his head with an air of ostentatious
independence, and whose hands and feet are on
the scale of those which adorn the exterior of
glovers' and lastmakers' shops. I pronounce
him to be—I scarcely know why—a
provincial pawnbroker, and wonder whether he
is hard or impressionable in his business dealings.
His companion is a dainty little person,
whose trim figure is set off in the neatest
of jackets, and whose hat and dress and gloves
are in such pretty harmony as to make one
exclaim for the thousandth time upon the
native taste, which so often makes a woman
look refined, when the male companion of her
own rank out of his working clothes is no more
than a bad and weak imitation of another social
grade. I make these observations musingly,
and from behind the railings of the gallery;
for I have plodded three-quarters of the way
round, and when the young couple enter I am
seated, and peeping down upon the chairs and
people in the nave below. Thus, without
thought of concealment, I escape observation,
and the young couple fancy they have the
gallery to themselves. I did not find this out
until the old man turned his face to the wall,
and began whispering to it as before; when
the awkward youth and pretty girl put their
faces to the wall to listen, and show an
appreciation of the contiguity which convinced me
they considered themselves unobserved.

To turn my back, and after giving a sonorous
"Hem!" to scuttle out of the gallery and
upstairs without looking round, is the work of
a moment, the old man giving me, "And a
beautiful prospect you'll have, sir, so far as the
weather will permit," as a parting salute. A
general view of fog, and river, and roof are the
strongest impressions I have of the first outside
gallery. The dome from here looks as enormous,
and the ball and cross as far off as from
the street below, and I resume my pilgrimage
up the stairs, with a strong feeling that I
shall see little more from the ball than I have
beheld already. Stairs give way to fixed ladders
before we reach the top, and the pleasant genial
guide who accompanies us there, and whose
cheerful merits call for special mention,
advises us to discard hat, and stick, and overcoat
at a certain stage. "A little narrow
for a man of your figure, sir," is the candid
explanation; though what is narrow and why