themselves) disagreeable manner, by not
going to bed at all.

People who stop up, or out all night,
may be divided into three classes: First,
editors, bakers, market-gardeners, and all
those who are kept out of their beds by
business. Secondly, gentlemen and "gents,"
anxious to cultivate a knowledge of the
"lark " species, or intent on the navigation of
the " spree." Thirdly, and lastly, those ladies
and gentlemen who do not go to bed, for the
very simple reason that they have no beds to
go to.

The members of this last class a very
numerous one are said, facetiously, to possess
"the key of the street." And a remarkably
disagreeable key it is. It will unlock for
you all manner of caskets you would fain
know nothing about. It is the " open sesame"
to dens you never saw before, and would
much rather never see again,— a key to
knowledge which should surely make the learner
a sadder man, if it make him not a wiser one.

Come with me, luxuriant tenant of heavy-
draped four-poster—basker on feather-bed,
and nestler in lawn sheets. Come with
me, comfortable civic bolster-presser—snug
woollen nightcap wearer. Come with me,
even workman, labourer, peasant—sleeper on
narrow pallet—though your mattress be hard,
and your rug coarse. Leave your bed—bad
as it may be and gaze on those who have no
beds at all. Follow with me the veins and
arteries of this huge giant that lies a-sleeping.
Listen while with " the key of the street " I
unlock the stony coffer, and bring forth the
book, and from the macadamised page read
forth the lore of midnight London Life.

I have no bed to-night. Why, it matters
not. Perhaps I have lost my latch-key,—
perhaps I never had one; yet am fearful of
knocking up my landlady after midnight.
Perhaps I have a caprice—a fancy—for
stopping up all night. At all events, I have no
bed ; and, saving ninepence (sixpence in silver
and threepence in coppers), no money. I
must walk the streets all night ; for I cannot,
look you, get anything in the shape of a bed
for less than a shilling. Coffee-houses, into
which—seduced by their cheap appearance
I have entered, and where I have humbly
sought a lodging, laugh my ninepence to
scorn. They demand impossible eighteen-
pences—unattainable shillings. There is
clearly no bed for me.

It is midnight so the clanging tongue of
St. Dunstan's tells me — as I stand thus,
bedless, at Temple Bar. I have walked a good
deal during the day, and have an uncomfortable
sensation in my feet, suggesting the idea
that the soles of my boots are made of roasted
brick-bats. I am thirsty, too (it is July, and
sultry), and, just as the last chime of St.
Dunstan's is heard, I have half-a-pint of
porter — and a ninth part of my ninepence is
gone from me for ever. The public-house
where I have it (or rather the beer-shop; for
it is an establishment of the " glass of ale and
sandwich " description) is an early-closing
one ; and the proprietor, as he serves me,
yawningly orders the pot-boy to put up the
shutters, for he is " off to bed." Happy
proprietor ! There is a bristly-bearded tailor,
too, very beery, having his last pint, who
utters a similar somniferous intention. He
calls it "Bedfordshire." Thrice happy tailor !

I envy him fiercely, as he goes out, though,
God wot, his bed-chamber may be but a
squalid attic, and his bed a tattered hop-sack,
with a slop great-coat — from the emporium of
Messrs, Melchisidech and Son, and which he
has been working at all day — for a coverlid.
I envy his children (I am sure he has a
frouzy, ragged brood of them), for they have
at least somewhere to sleep,—I haven't.

I watch, with a species of lazy curiosity,
the whole process of closing the " Original
Burton Ale House," from the sudden shooting
up of the shutters, through the area grating,
like gigantic Jacks-in-a-box, to the final
adjustment of screws and iron nuts. Then I
bend my steps westward, and, at the corner of
Wellington Street, stop to contemplate a
cab-stand.

Cudgel thyself, weary Brain, — exhaust
thyself, Invention,— torture thyself, Ingenuity
—all, and in vain, for the miserable acquisition
of six feet of mattress and a blanket!

Had I the delightful impudence, now — the
calm audacity—of my friend, Bolt, I should
not be five minutes without a bed. Bolt, I
verily believe, would not have the slightest
hesitation in walking into the grandest hotel
in Albernarle Street or Jermyn Street, asking
for supper and a bootjack, having his bed
warmed, and would trust to Providence and
his happy knack of falling, like a cat, on
all-fours, for deliverance in the morning. I
could as soon imitate Bolt as I could dance
on the tight-rope. Spunge again, that stern
Jeremy Diddler, who always bullies you when
you relieve him, and whose request for the
loan of half-a-crown is more like a threat
than a petition—Spunge, I say, would make
a violent irruption into a friend's room; and,
if he did not turn him out of his bed, would
at least take possession of his sofa and his
great-coats for the night, and impetuously
demand breakfast in the morning. If I were
only Spunge, now!

What am I to do? It's just a quarter past
twelve; how am I to walk about till noon
tomorrow? Suppose I walk three miles an hour,
am I to walk thirty-five miles in these fearful
London streets? Suppose it rains, can I stand
under an archway for twelve hours?

I have heard of the dark arches of the
Adelphi, and of houseless vagrants crouching
there by night. But, then, I have read in
"Household Words," that police constables
are nightly enjoined by their inspectors to
rout out these vagrants, and drive them from
their squalid refuge. Then there are the dry
arches of Waterloo Bridge, and the railway