peer of the realm. Mr. Alcachofado himself
selected your cigar, and, if you approved of it,
snipped off the end in a little patent machine,
and presented it to you with a grave bow. You
proposed to light it; but this Mr. Alcachofado
would by no means permit. He drew a splint
from a stack in a japanned stand, kindled it at
the gas-jet, and with another bow handed it to
you. It you wished to fill the heart of Mr.
Alcachofado with anguish, and to pass in his eyes
for a person of the very worst breeding, you
would, when the splint had served your turn,
cast it on the floor, and trample it under foot.
I have seen the proprietor of the Morro glare
at people who did this, as though he would have
dearly liked to take off his curly-brimmed hat
and fling it at their heads. Regular customers
knew well the etiquette of the Morro, which
was gently to blow out the tiny flame of the
splint, and place it horizontally on the top of
the fasces in the japanned tin box. Then you
bowed to Mr. Alcachofado, and he bowed in
return, and, taking a seat, if you liked, on a
huge cigar chest, you proceeded to smoke
the calumet of peace. Did I say that for five
minutes you would be treated like a nobleman?
You might softly kick your heels, and meditate
on the transitory nature of earthly things, in
that snug little shop for nearly half an hour.
Threepenny cigars lasted five-and-twenty minutes
in those days. Austere personages of aristocratic
mien patronised Mr. Alcachofado. They
looked like country members, masters in
Chancery, charity commissioners. They looked as
though they belonged to clubs. They called
the proprietor Alcatchanything, without the
Mr. He was gravely courteous to them, but
not more so than to humbler patrons. I remember
that he always took in the second edition
of the Globe. I have, in my time, bespoken it, I
think, not without fear and trembling, from a
baronet. They were affable creatures, those
exalted ones, and talked sedate common-places
about the House, and the crops, and the revenue,
until I used to fancy I had land and beeves
and a stake in the country. There was only
one absolutely haughty customer, who wore a
spencer and gaiters, and sometimes swore. He
smoked a costlier cigar than the ordinary race
of puffers; and one had to rise from the big
cigar chest while Mr. Alcachofado, a shining
bunch of keys in hand, like a discreet sacristan,
unlocked this treasure-coffer, and produced
regalias of price. Yet even this haughty man
in the spencer gave me a bow once when I
brushed by him in the lobby of the House,
where I had been waiting two hours and a
quarter on a night when Sir Robert Peel was up,
in the vain hope of getting into the strangers'
gallery with an Irish member's order. The
haughty man thought he knew me. I felt
so proud that I had my hair cut the very next
day, and determined, like Mr. Pepys, to "go
more like myself." A grave company we were
at Mr. Alcachofado's. Now and then, on Opera
nights, dandies in evening dress would stroll
in to smoke a cigarette. There was great
scandal one evening—it was Grisi's benefit—
when a tall young man, with a white cravat and a
tawny moustache, ordered Mr. Alcachofado to
"open him a bottle of soda, and look sharp."
Those were his very words. There was a
commotion among the customers. Soda water!
Was this a tobacconist's and fancy stationer's in
the Clapham-road? As well might you have
asked the beadle of St. George's, Hanover-
square, for hot whisky-toddy between psalm
and sermon. Mr. Alcachofado, under the
circumstances, was calm. He gave the tall young
desperado one look, to wither him, and in slow
and measured accents, not devoid of a touch of
sarcasm, replied, "I sell neither soda-water, nor
ginger-beer, nor walking-sticks, nor penny
valentines, sir." The customers grimly chuckled
at this overwhelming rebuke. There was
nothing thing left for the tall young man but to
withdraw; but, as I was nearest the door, I am
constrained to state that as he lounged out he
remarked that the "old guy," meaning Mr.
Alcachofado, "seemed doosid crusty."

He is gone, this Grandison of the counter and
till—gone, seemingly, with most other professors
of the grande manière. The modern tobacconist
is loud voiced and obtrusive; proposes to send
you home a box of the Cabana Kings of which
you have scarcely tasted one; and, ere you have
been in his shop five minutes, gives you a tip
for the Two Thousand Guineas. This was not
Mr. Alcachofado's way of doing business. By-
the-by, why wasn't he a señor? But he
betrayed no symptoms of Iberian extraction; and
when, seeing an engraving of the Morro Castle
itself on one of his cedar boxes, I strove to
draw him out, and asked him if the picture
resembled the place itself, he replied, ambiguously,
that he had not visited foreign parts—adding,
after a moment's pause, that he did not approve
of their ways. Whence his Spanish name, then?
Whence anybody's name? I dealt with a greengrocer
once who had the self-same appellation
as the last prime minister of Constantine
Palæologus. How Mr. Alcachofado had come to
enter the tobacco business—unless he were a
retired Custom-house officer—was to me a
mystery. There was a dim something about
him that always led you to fancy that before
he had dealt in cigars, he had been in the
church.

The Morro Castle had to me always a
fascinating sound. There were three boys at the
school at Turnham-green, where I completed my
education—that is to say, where on the last day
of my last "half" I began to discover that I
didn't know anything—three Spanish Creole
boys all hailing from Havana. They kept very
close together, and aloof from the rest of
the school, and wrapped themselves up in
Castilian pride as in a cloak; indeed, one of them
subsequently admitted to me, that, on leaving
Cuba, his papa had given him two special
cautions: to beware of the "Estrangeros," and
not to show them—"enseñar"—the Spanish
tongue. We, too, were rather shy of them at
first; for there was a received tradition among