mind. I would take a walk, and look at the
town.

My misgivings returned. The quarter in
which fate had pitched my threadbare tent,
looked uncomfortably like the bottom of
Waterloo Place. The houses were very
white, very square, very marbly—and were
great in the matter of portes cochères, with
such brass handles and knockers as no hand
out of a Berlin glove would dare to meddle
with. Had I not made a mistake? Was it
for the likes of me to dwell among these
Carltons and Athenæums? Pshaw! My
giants are only windmills after all! What I
have taken for a Bank of England is but a
bookseller's shop: negociants in the lace
trade, with teachers of dancing and
languages occupying the upper stories. Even
that stupendous Buckingham Palace opposite,
is only a Family Hotel. And, as I live! there
is a tap on the basement story. Yea—a very
tap-room. I see that they wish me to accept
it as an estaminet; but I am not to be deceived.
It is a place where—for all their Scagliola
columns, and pale mahogany furniture—
somebody is licensed to sell beer by retail;
and the beer is to be drunk on the premises.
I observed that the beer is going off at a
very brisk rate, and that the persons who
drink it on the premises are, for the most
part, sweeps and coal-heavers. (Very tall,
thin sweeps they are; generally knock-
kneed, and with tightly-fitting skeleton suits
of flannel—having leathern straps round
their knees, to keep down exuberance of leg:
the class of sweep which—if I were so fortunate
as to own steamboats I would employ
to keep my funnels in order.) My old faith
in Brussels as the centre and ideal of the
cheap which is not the nasty, returns comfortingly
to me. It is time the problem were
tested, so I enter—do not be prematurely
severe, reader—the bookseller's, and demand
a daily journal.

The price? One penny sterling for a single
copy; but if I will subscribe for three
months, the journal will be delivered at my
residence at the rate of a farthing and a
fraction per diem. I will think over the
subscription proposition; and, in the mean
time, submit to the ruinous interest (or
discount, which is it?) for temporary accommodation.
Decidedly Brussels is cheap and
splendid. The shop in which I had been
thanked so civilly for my penny purchase of
the latest intelligence would put Messrs.
Sams and Moodie to shame.

Everything else that I buy is so cheap, and
everything I see is so grand, I return to my
marble palace strongly inclined to undertake
the Dogeship of Venice, if need be. Monsieur
Blanc, the civil intendant of my palace,
approaches me and hopes that I have slept
well. I inform him, with much bonhommie
that I have slept admirably. Monsieur Blanc
hopes I like their little town. As I am determined
to put this good fellow at his ease, I
tell him that I like his little town above all
towns, and intend staying in it for some time.
Monsieur Blanc and his fellow-citizens were
only too much honoured. Had I secured a
residence for myself and charming family,
who were not up yet, naturally, owing to the
fatigues of the voyage?

I thought it commonly decent to appear
absorbed in the Echo de Bruxelles, that I
might not observe Monsieur Blanc's natural
confusion while I conveyed to him the
overwhelming tidings that I intended staying
where I was—namely, at Monsieur Blanc's
hotel.

"Vrai—ment?"

Why did M. Blanc elevate his eyebrows
and look at my boots? And how came it
that I watched him narrowly as he did so—
instead of minding my Echo de Bruxelles?

Yes. I had been recommended to the Sans
Nom as an agreeable and economical
residence. I did not wish to encumber myself
with the responsibilities of an establishment in
Brussels. It was one of the advantages of a
popular form of government, that not merely
the conveniences, but the elegances of life
were——

"Hi! Blanc!"

"Monsieur."

In the Monsieur who had entered, and to
enquire into whose will and pleasure M.
Blanc deserted me—with what I did not then
like to consider (but which was) very rude
abruptness—I immediately recognised a well-
known travelling English baronet, whom I
knew to be in the annual enjoyment of more
thousands sterling than I could even hope to
earn in forty years.

"Do you mean to say you charge four
francs and a half for a cup of tea?"

"Monsieur had eggs."

What was this chill that came over me so
suddenly? I too had had eggs.

"When I came through here in January
you only charged me two francs for chops
and the (something) knows what all."

"Monsieur," replied M. Blanc, with an
adamantine dignity that might not easily be
wounded, "January is one month—September
another. Our season of voyageurs barely
extends over four months in the year. We
must profit by those months. In the winter
I make reductions. It is then my interest
to lower my charges and even take in
boarders by the week or month. But at
present——"

I guessed what M. Blanc did at present.
How the honourable and wealthy baronet
took his arguments I never cared to enquire.
It seemed to me that I gave a hop, step, and
jump, beginning from the steps of M. Blanc's
hotel, and alighting at a considerable distance
outside the barriers of Brussels.

Whether it was that the garçon had
changed my humble Balmorals for a pair of
patent seven leagues in the morning; or
whether Brussels was really no larger than