history of when, where, and of whom, it was purchased; every morsel of anything like dust is deliberately stroked off. The hat is polished again and again, until you tremble for the nap, and yourself indulging in a calculation as to how much per annum Mr. Gedder's hats may stand him in at that rate.

dress, you wish one made, and ask advice of
Mrs. Gedder; but receive it gratis from Mr. G.
He wishes to know what is for his dinner; his
wife evades the question; he persists, and on
hearing, knocks off your favorite dish (maccaroni
and cheese) as "unwholesome; a thing the
children may not eat, and therefore ought not to
see;" which leads to an animated debate as to
whether it is not better to inculcate self-denial by
allowing children to see what they may not have.
You are to initiate Mrs. Gedder into the myste-him
ries of some peculiarly excellent cakes that re-
quire unheard-of skill in the compounding; for
which purpose you retire to the store-room, tuck
up sleeves, and are soon immersed in sweets.
Thither also, adjourns Mr. Gedder, to see what
you are doing; and the questions he asks of
"why do you do this;" and "why you don't do
that;" which he should think a much better
plan," mingled with exclamations of "now really
that is an extraordinary combination;" "will it
be nice?" &c., nearly drive you out of your wits;
while you feel a horrid temptation to lay hands
on a flower-bag you perceive hard by, and dust
it well about his ears.

Having, in the teeth of his interference, put the finishing stroke to your cookery, you hint at a walk. Mr. Gedder says he was thinking of going out; whereupon you suddenly discover you have slight cold, and had better take care of yourself, perhaps, hoping for a good fire and pleasant téte-á-téte with your friend when her spouse is gone.

You wait and wait. He has risen, and is gazing from the window, drumming Oh Susannah on the frame. It happens to be your name, and you heartily wish he would go to Alabama, feeling he need be under no apprehension of your shedding tears at his departure. You draw forth your watch, and remark casually that it is twelve o'clock; vou did not think it had been so late (a terrible fib by-the-by, for you both hoped and believed it was at least an hour later.

"Twelve is it?-then he must go;" and he walks towards the door, but returns; for it is one of the characteristics of his class to be always the going man. It takes as long to get one of them fairly off the premises as to get a large vessel under weigh. He has discovered a hole in his glove, the size of a pin's head; it must be repaired; and you cheerfully offer your services, thinking thereby to facilitate his departure. Having accomplished your task, you feel delighted to see him put on the gloves, and make once more for the door.

Do not allow your spirits to attain too high a level; he has turned the handle, but at that moment is attracted by some one passing the window; retraces his steps to make out who it is, and ano. ther five minutes is gone in conjectures whether it can be Smith out again,—to which is appended a history of Smith's accident, and consequent long confinement to the house.

At length his toilette is completed, and this time be actually reaches the front door. He is not gone, however; back he comes (vou long to kick out,) to inform his wife the lock wants oil, and there are some finger-marks on the paint. His next attempt takes him to the garden-gate. Is it possible? Yes; here he is again; there are heavy clouds he tells you; he dreads rain, and must have an umbrella; he just puts his head in to give you this informatian, and it is all you can do to restrain yourself from rushing at him, seizing him by the shoulders, putting him outside his own door, and turning the key upon him! You sit for ten minutes after he has disappeared, expecting a fresh return; trying to calm yourself and be resigned should such be the case. At the end of a quarter of an hour you breathe freely, and then have such a charming chat with Mrs. Gedder, you almost forget she is no longer Eliza Dibb, and that there is a miserable man called Gedder in existence.

You are not long allowed to enjoy this delusion; too soon arrives the hour for dinner, and with it punctually, Mr. Gedder. It is a problem to you how it happens that he comes so true to time when you consider what was the manner of his departure. He has been to call on Mr. Gregg; the next time you see Mr. Gregg, you solve your problem by ingeniously drawing from him, that when Mr. Gedder makes a call, he begins to go at the end of about ten minutes, which allows plenty of time for the usual number of abortive sallies.

The dinner is a series of fidgets. Margaret eats too little; she cannot be well. "My dear that child is evidently out of health; I wonder you do not perceive it; mothers ought to be the first to observe any sympton of disorder in their children." Margaret is an unusually robust strong girl, and is teazed into fancying herself an invalid, and eats little on principle, as being more interesting. Next he falls upon poor Guss, who is making up for his sister's want of appetite by the display of a double portion. He is denounced as a “glutton -a perfect glutton,-his papa is ashamed of him," Nor does Jane escape; she despatches her food too quickly, and uses too much salt. Mrs. Gedder makes a facetious proposal that the children shall have all their food weighed, and a certain time allotted to each mouthful.

The desert is partaken of, accompanied by an advice to the Governess on the mode of instructing her pupils,—how he should proceed were h the teacher; and you involuntarily wish he would take to that or any other employment that would allow him less time for admonishing and investi

One struggle more," and you believe your-gating. .self free. He has left the room.

Be not deceiv- He generally takes a nap in his chair after dinner, though he would repudiate the accusation with scorn; he would not, therefore, lie down, and do it comfortably for the world, but sits nodding with a pamphlet before him, every now and then amusing himself by a complicated snore, or

ed; he has but got as far as the hat-stand and comes back, bearing his hat and great-coat, which he informs you he purposes putting on by the fire. And oh! the interminable time it requires to do so! The coat is examined; you have the

whole commissariat department for two and a half millions of people is disarranged Famine prices set in, as many a London 'goody' knows from late experience in coals, and candles, and bread. The huge heavy-laden wains, piled up parallelopipedonically (to use something emphatic) with cabbages, turnip bunches, or carrots, and whose wheels rumble in the streets before the lamps are out, leave the heavy citizen for the nonce in beatific peace to snore by the side of his spouse. The accommodations for eating and drinking, as well as the comestibles, are as varied as the occupations of the day-denizens of London. The magnates imbibe turtle and port for luncheon, at the great taverns, and return home to a late dinner, digestive pills, and dyspepsia. With these we have nought to do. They form a minority, of which the units are in all conscience huge enough, but which collectively make only a feeble impression on the mountains of bread and montecules of beef done in the city every day. The mountains truly, may we aver, when the London consumption of wheat for the last year was 1,600,000 quarters. The mimic rapids of old port which speed down, but few know where, leave more palpable evidence of things that were, but are not, by ebb-tide in the cellar. A joke is afloat on this element, that the port of London is better represented than ever hitherto, inasmuch as one of the estimable representatives has quaffed more of the luscious blood than any man within the jurisdiction of my Lord Mayor.

Folks only who have got a plum' can do so 'extensively;' whose work consists in coming to town from habit; chatting for an hour or two with visitors and guests; imagining they have done a great deal of indespensable duty, and then exclaiming, as we heard the good old Lombardstreet banker a week ago to his son, Well, I think I shall go home now.'-' Good-by,' said son to sire; you think you've done a hard day's work, no doubt.'

these places; but the broadcloth-each unit of above suspicion of a sandwich, or even the smell of one-glide by, sniffing the breeze, with an Ah, it is very true, that one half the world dosen't know how the other half lives!"

Taste has not been cultivated in the patrons of A-la-mode at twopence a-plate, as with the precisely-brushed exquisite:-'It is the seasonin' as does it,' the pieman very truly says. It is all the same thing; when cherries is out then pappies is in.' A-la mode and leg-of-beef, so they be peppered well, bring out a gustative smack as hearty as an alderman's after turtle. A workingman's dinner-soup, meat, and potatoes'-is advertised by the immortal 'Worrell,' at all his shops, for threepence; and many prefer it to the steak, pint, and pipe at the tap. At such a rate, clean knives and forks are fastidities; they cut as well dirty as clean; and if the spoon or the yellow delf water-jug has a little of a predecessor's property upon it, so much the more for the lucky discoverer.

The

A motley company patronises the place. There is an aristocracy in every condition of life. costermonger's relict, who cried, Think I'd 'soshate with them; them's low people!' was s gentle scion of nature's noblesse. At the 'leg-o'beef' house, an upper seat, a private room, an up-stairs,' is retained for such, at half-penny adish more for soup, and no half-plates' of potatoes. Go into the room :-Hungry, threadbare clerks frequent it, grown lank and poor some of them, others growing so; pretty-well-to-do labourers, who could not demean themselves to sit with common people, join the society. The workmen seem to like and thrive upon their fare, and contrast with their lathlike companions in black. This rusty suit, who looks into his basin, and shrinks as though some one would catch him, has only lately found out how to dine cheap. His shadowy visage tells us that he has known what it is to be hungry. Better days were Hundreds who have not reached the glorious once his; and it is clear that the road downwards climax of 'a plum' have to work right hard, and from good dinners to the knowledge of dinners get so engrossed in business, that the matter of cheap, led through a space of no dinners at all. sustenance dare not interfere and annoy them till He will grow callous by and by, but will never City hours are past:-men waiting to realise reach the happy assurance of the stripling at the enough to keep house upon, and not seeing the same table, who is going through corresponding insidious trailing of grey hairs among their youth- metamorphoses upwards. Evidently the bestrapful black shocks before they begin the experi-ped and bepatched aspirant to dignity, who so ment: fairt and famished they fill the European' audaciously demands half-slice o' plum' after and the Cock,' and the quiet retirements of his soup, has given the worthy washerwoman, Walbrook; if the former, they shrink back an his mother, a world of trouble since he doffed his interminable distance from the distraction of the charity 'breeks.' He has lately mounted on the street. Money-making men are they, Would stool, as scrub to a junior clerk of a pettifogger. you not exchange five, or six, or seven o'clock If nine shillings a-week does not make him, in with them, you who are received with the glad- his mind's eye, grasp the baton of Lord Chansome eye of a young wife and the lively prattle cellor, it does at any rate, open a view more con of a little Eva, who are ensconced in your cosy, sonant with his genius-the swagger and preold arm-chair every day after work, but don't sumption of a vulgar and ignorant quilldriver. make money so fast, and scarcely know the comfort of noiseless garcons, who flit by, take an order, and evaporate?

Savory as is the compound of steam from greens and potatoes, and exhalations from soups, puddings, and dishwater, let us valorously resist From the great, heavy, splendid, substantial the temptation to stay. Steer clear of the waiters, men and dining paraphernalia, we may pass half-washed like their plates, and scan the com through a thousand intermediate styles of feed-pany as you traverse the shop. Irish Mike is ing, down to the 'two-and-a-half-plate' of leg-o'- here, and Jack the dustman, and better than all, beef abominations. Useful in its way, but Hea. in one box, a sweep. A round hundred are enven forefend an experience of the delicacy! The joying the good the gods provide,' and will Aurrents of cord and fustian flow irregularly into come again to-morrow.

When we meet our young friend on 'Change of an afternoon, it usually leads to eating. The other day he clapped us on the shoulder, as an accompaniment to his refined greeting of Well, old fellow, how d'ye do? I'm glad to see you.' What, Charley, is it you?'

·

'My lord, the same, and your good servant ever. Have you been to the Exhibition?'

Most indisputably, my jocular friend.' "What, the Great Exhibition?' "The Great Exhibition.'

In Hyde Park?'

"In Hyde Park.'

'Of 1851 ?'

'Of 1851.'

'Prince Albert's Exhibition?'

Prince Albert's Exhibition.'

houses, whose canvas advertisements announce, 'Ale and Sandwich for fourpence;' and, at the same time, form the blind, and sole decoration of the window. The proprietors of the Alton Brewery are landlords of these London stores, and put their own tenants in to sell ale on commission, with leave to get what profit they may on pork pies, bread and cheese, sandwiches, sausage rolls, and other vendible delicacies. That they are a flourishing speculation, one may feel pretty assured by the continual addition to their number, as also by the thronged rooms and bar whenever one peeps in. The principle on which they are conducted is good, and naturally finds favor. All articles are cheap, and at a fixed price; and, what is most in favor of all, Fees to waiters are abolished!' Every rider in an omnibus

Ay, ay, Charley, you are too late; we know it or a second-class railway carriage knows that

is the fast greeting of to-day.

'A wonderful place, wasn't it?'

'It was a wonderful place, Charley.'
'What a wonderful thing steam is, isn't it?'
'Yes, indeed, Charley.'
'And heterodoxy?"

"And heterodoxy.'

'And man?'

'And man.'

And woman?'

"The most wonderful enigma of all, Charley.' This hasn't much to do with eating and drinking, but it is on the track, as you will see; and, at any rate, it introduces you to Charley, our friend, and shows you what a strange fellow he is, though not stranger than his comrades on 'Change. His next remark is,

'I'm just going to do a bit of lunch. Come too?' With all my heart. Where go?' I know a crib where they give you a bit of chicken and a glass of sherry.'

This stage of chat leads us to one of those complete little nooks in the tortuous vicinage of 'Change Alley, or Pope's Head Court, where we can take a hasty snack. It is ended in five minutes; for there is a panic in Capel Court, and Charley must watch the market. Prices, or 'prizes,' as the 'stags,' and 'bulls,' and 'bears' (ominously of blanks) will insist upon pronouncing it, are going up' and 'falling' at a rate that makes a greater din and clamour than usual even at the Stock Exchange. Charley is not the only friend of the lunch mart. It would tire us to count all who put in an appearance there, for the same brief space, in the course of the busy day. Statistics we have had of chicken demolition, which ought to make the ruthless devourers chicken-hearted to read. Leadenhall disposed of 1,270,000 last year and as many geese and ducks. It would be a number with quite an array of ciphers after it, to tell how many passed over the lunch counter. Everything is done in these corners to tempt a customer twice. Glass sparkles like crystal; diaper like snow; the plate like mirrors; the knives as the patent cleaning machine only can make them. An admission of our friend Charley's would be to some a drawback I never ask them how much it is; but I know they always take onough.'

'Mann' of Aldermanbury insists upon being the original reformer of the fee system, for he uses the matter as a claim to patronage. Diningrooms are gradually getting to understand how little their patrons like the levy of a benevolence in these free-trade days; and, since the Alton luncheons have made the reform popular, many of them follow in the same wake.

Catering, of course, is not confined to lunches. The bulk of City employées dine in town. Many of the large houses keep a seat for those 'out of the house' at the table of those 'in the house'— every one being boarded, though only unhappy novitiates in the craft are compulsorily lodged. Who ever saw a City butcher other than rotund and sleek? Ask him, and he will confess that it is attributable in no little measure to the capabilities of these said dinner-tables. If not the best proportion, yet the goodliest prices; of 225,000 cattle and 1,820,000 sheep, London consumption last year, went to these houses. A butcher's bill on one of the regal merchants is a good maintenance; generally, indeed, too much with which to favor one, and divided among several tradesmen.

Chop-houses combine luncheon and dinner. The gallantry of the patrons have given courage to some buxom proprietresses to assume their Christian names, and let their houses revel in the pleasant appellations of Martha's,' or 'Louisa's,' or 'Charlotte's,' or 'Sarah's' Chop-house. Whe ther 'Dolly's' be an affectionate diminutive, we are not sure.

Most diners-out are acquainted with the characteristic houses. A splendid fish ordinary may be joined at Simpson's, Billingsgate, or what was Simpson's a month or two ago, and few who assume to be connoisseurs have not visited it at least once. The Post Office clerks on pay-day, after cashing their Bank of England cheques, drop in at the Cock in Threadneedle Street, where, they will maintain, the finest basin of soup is to be had in London. The flock of clerks used to be looked for to the day as confidently as the coming of migratory birds. But irregularity has shown itself. Modern postal business has filled every vacuum in the time routine of the office.

Farther along from the 'Old Lady' of Threadneedle Street, is another place, famous for the abundance heaped upon every dish. Tier upon tier of rooms, up to the roof of the house, is packed as if by contract, every day at feeding

While on the topic of lunch, we dare not omit allusion to a new feature of late years, to subserve this desirable snack. We hint at the Alton Ale-time, with hungry visitants.