arm-holes, "Look here now, Mr. Wilcox—in a
business point of view—do you mean to tell me
and those other gentlemen here, that you decline
to provide us with the common necessaries for
an English gentleman's breakfast? If so, pray
say so at once, and let me and those gentlemen
know how we stand?" Mr. Wilcox looked
puzzled—most likely amused—though we set
him down as abashed and confounded at having
his guilty purpose exposed. "N-no," he said;
"it is not that, but you know, sir" (he was
already grovelling), "there is a limit to all
things, and really the trays and trays o' things
that I have seen a-go up with my own eyes——"
"Well, if there is a limit, Mr. Wilcox," our
champion replied, his chair tilted back with a
man of the world's indifference that we felt it
was hopeless to think of imitating, "there need
be no limit to the bill; in moderation, charge
something additional. These gentlemen, I am
sure, will not object." The "gentlemen" murmured
gutturously and indistinctly something to
the effect that they approved of everything going
on. "Don't let us fall out about a trifle, Mr.
Wilcox," added our gallant spokesman. "We
shall be often passing this way. See Mrs.
Wilcox about it. She'll put you straight,
won't you, Mrs. Wilcox?" That lady, who
had just appeared at the door, full of hostility
against what I have an instinct she must have
considered "them brats," was so delighted with
the appeal, that she took Wilcox's arm and led
him away; and in a few moments a glorious
stream of hissing, simmering, and very oleaginous
muffinry set in. Over this repast, the effusion
of joy, of almost slavish veneration, for
the gallant Digger was so extravagant, that I
believe he could have on the spot disposed of
our lives and persons, and led us where he
pleased with implicit confidence on our parts.
The highest offices in the land—the most
brilliant future—we augured for him; hopes
which, I believe, he did not fulfil; in fact, he
ended poorly, and was rather a failure.

Ill in an inn! That is being ill indeed. The
loneliness, the blankness, the sense that the
landlord has on his mind an impression that
you are going to die, and that he and the
"business" will be injured by the spectacle of a
funeral, make you most miserable. He thinks
with the late Lord Kelly, "that to die in your
house is the greatest liberty one man can take
with another." Then the difficulty of getting
"things done"—the little possets and gruels.

A wedding at an hotel—fashionable or
otherwise—is rather a dismal business. There is a
fatal air of insincerity over the banquet, which
has a "baked-meats " air. The waiters eye
the "happy pair" hungrily and with competion.
Rather they never lose sight of the
happy man for a second, fearful lest he should
be plotting to defraud them of expected
"backsheesh." The landlord hovers about, looking
at the guests suspiciously, for they have
given no orders, and is thinking of what
salvage he can secure out of the feast. He is
dissatisfied with any settlement, for how can                                                           money make up to him for the conspicuousness
of the proceeding, the idlers in the street, and
the families perhaps frightened away by the
block of carriages, and by the gaudy guests in
the windows like parrots in a cage?

The fashion—for it is a fashion—of living in
these huge families, came over from the great
hotel country, Germany. There do the grand
hotels flourish, and eke the clever business men
who "manage" the grand hotels. But there
the hotel is in perfect keeping, and fills up a
corner in the economy of life charmingly. What
traveller does not recal a great facade of
pale yellow, with eyelids of green blinds,
and the pleasant garden and trees about,
and snowy white and airy halls and passages,
with orange-trees in tubs, and trees forcing their
way in through window or door, and a cool
but slippery monster stair, and a snowy white
enamelled-looking room, with the double French
windows (a little complicate in their working,
and with a leverage sadly weak), but which are
indispensable for giving the foreign air? Who,
when he thinks of so much, and has got in that
background, does not then add to it an eternal
but pleasant fragrance of cigars, and a very
courteous and gentle manager, and a cloud of
German waiters, who glide along with
surprising deftness, and seem like disguised imps
out of a pantomime? In Germany, hotel-
keeping is, so to speak, a liberal profession.
But it requires capital, and more than capital,
skill and training, with eaters like the Germans,
such terrible exacters of their literal pound
of flesh, whose appetites claim so greedily
whatever is their money's worth. An hotel-
keeper would be ruined in six months, unless
he knew to a nicety the cheapest mode of obtaining
his stores. In an hotel town the owners are
capitalists; but, like sensible capitalists, train
their sons to the business. And it is a fact
that, at this moment, there are many brisk
young waiters in the Grand Hôtel at Paris, or
in the Hotel du Louvre, who are thus, in
apprenticeship: beginning at the very bottom of
the ladder, answering to the cry of "garçon,"
and flying about with dishes, though their fathers
be worth thousands of florins. By-and-by,
having thus "served," they will return home
and take their place under the father's régime,
and in time succeed.

Pleasant are the memories of the Cock, and
the old manners and customs; for here the system
of "chalking up" is maintained punctiliously:
I suspect at some inconvenience. Who, as he
sits in this tranquil old-fashioned place, in the
old-fashioned box, does not dream of that
"head waiter at the Cock," who has been sung
in choice poetry? I like their old sober behiind-
the-times ways, and the effigy of the Cock
over the doorway, and the primitive speech
of the waiters—"chop to follow," and "the
follow chop."

Becalmed at an inn, waiting a fresh pecuniary
gale, which will not come, the sense of gathering
awkwardness, and the shrinking from the
landlord's eye, in spite of a feeling of conscious