I should most decidedly have declined the
invitation, shouldered my bundle (containing my
one extra shirt), and held on my way to the less
arduous duty of tending some farmer's sheep in
the inglorious but peaceful fields of Hertfordshire.
So, at least, I thought the other morning,
while sitting upon Whittington's stone.
Bells were ringing to me out of the mist below,
but they said:

     "Rest and be thankful, lad;
      Rest and be thankful, lad;
      It is hard to be Lord Mayor of London."

I think I know how it was with little Dick. In
wandering about the streets the day before, and
just as he had made up his mind to leave the
pitiless city, he stumbled upon the Lord Mayor's
show. He saw the gilded coach and the
glittering procession, and, going to sleep that
night under a dry arch, he dreamed about it.
The vision of greatness was still fresh in his
mind when he started off in the morning. As
he trudges onward, he recals what he has read,
or heard, of humble boys, like himself, who
have risen from nothing to be Lord Mayor,
and, as he is gradually leaving the City
behind, it suddenly occurs to him that he is
deliberately throwing away his chance of attaining
to the dignity. He sits down to rest and
think—to hesitate. He looks down, upon the
big busy City, glittering under the sun, with so
many high roads to honour, and he waits for an
omen, His heart is yonder among the houses,
and it is hard to tear it away; the vision of
the gilded coach and the brave array is still in
his mind, all his yearnings are towards the City.

"Oh, for some encouraging voice to bid me
turn again," he exclaims; and, as the last
words are on his lips, the bells ring out:

     "Turn again, Whittington,
      Thrice Lord Mayor ot London!"

In his ears, with that bright vision before his
eyes, and with those longings at his heart, it
could sound like nothing else.

But it was different in my case. I had not
seen the Lord Mayor, the day before, going
in glory to Westminster. I had seen him in
the midst of his duties at the Mansion House,
overwhelmed with business, harassed, pestered,
worried out of his life. So the bells rang out
quite a different story to me. By the way, it
appears to me that bells are arrant sycophants
in this respect—they are always ready to say as
you say, say what you will. I believe if Mr.
William Sykes had sat and listened to them on
Highgate-hill, they would have told him in the
most cheerful tones to turn back and murder
Nancy.

I have been, as the readers of this Journal
may remember, "With the Lord Mayor on his
own day." I have, since then, spent with the
Lord Mayor a day, not one minute of which he
could call his own. It was my day, yours—the
nobility, gentry, mid public in general's day
—anybody's day but the Lord Mayor's. And I
believe all his days are pretty much the same.

Up at half-past seven in the morning! Fancy
that, my Whittington, to begin with. Didn't
you think, now, that when you became Lord
Mayor you would be able to lie to what hour
you liked? Of course you did. But you will
find that a Lord Mayor's life is not all gilt-coach,
turtle, and champagne. The very first
duty of the day is one that few of us would care
to be bound to—the duty of reading letters and
signing a large number of documents before
breakfast. And the letters which the Lord
Mayor receives are frequently calculated to take
away his appetite for breakfast. For example,
when he came into the breakfast-room the other
morning to snatch a hasty meal, he brought with
him, by way of something pleasant to communicate
to his family, a letter addressed outside to
the "Dishonourable the Lord Mayor," and
containing, inside, the agreeable and appetising
intimation that he would be shot next Friday
morning. I expected his family to go off into
hysterics in a body, and I was quite prepared to
join in the chorus; but I found they took it
coolly. It is quite an every-day occurrence.
There is always somebody threatening to shoot
the Lord Mayor. Turn again, Whittington, do
turn; it is so pleasant to go about in the
momentary expectation of having a bullet through
your head. Letters pour in upon the Lord
Mayor of London in cart-loads. They are from
all classes of persons, upon every kind of business
and idle folly, and come from all quarters
of the world. Frenchmen write to him in the
idea that he is autocrat of all London and prime
minister of the sovereign; mad Germans send
him cramped screeds of besotted political
philosophy; indigent Irishmen claim him as a son
of Erin, and beg a trifle in the name of their
common country; schoolboys who are not happy
at home ask him for situations in the City.
This morning he received a long letter from a
German, giving him a history of his own career.
According to his correspondent's account, he,
the Lord Mayor, was born in Hamburg, of
German parents, and was brought up as a tailor.
There is no kind of lunacy under the sun, which
does not vent itself in a letter to the Lord Mayor
of London. Of course the cart-load of
communications is well sifted by his secretary,
but there is always a large residuum which
demands his personal attention. He is asked
to patronise charities, to take the chair at
dinners, to open exhibitions, to be present
—whatever his creed and denomination—at Church
of England sermons, to lay foundation-stones,
and generally to give up the whole of his time,
and spend a good deal more than the whole of
his fortune, for the benefit of the human race.
The Lord Mayor does not wear a smooth brow
when he comes in to breakfast of a morning.
Care vaults upon his shoulders the moment he
is out of bed. How shall he answer all these
applicants? To which shall he say "Yes," and
to which "No?" He will have to preside in
the justice-room by-and-by. What if the assassin
should be there, waiting to shoot him according
to obliging promise!

It is not all cooking that goes on in the basement