ad happened. When his instrument has come entirely to grief he turns to
a clarionet, which he carries under his arm, and plays "Mourir pour la
Patrie" with extraordinary vocal effect and irreverent gestures.
Punch-and-Judy is largely attended at the other end; Punch is
kitchen-pokering his wife, too, like the gentleman we have just left;
but we pass in with the crowds to the Museum itself. Halting a moment
in the reading-room, to jot down there a few notes, one is struck with
the scanty show of students. _They_ are spending Boxing-day somewhere
else. Passing through the little knot of people who are permitted by
special order to come as far as the door of the reading-room, and who
evidently regard the readers as some curious sort of animal exhibited
for their special delectation--perhaps the book-"worm" of which they
have heard so much--we go up the stairs, now thronged with crowds in
unwonted broadcloth and fragrant with the odour of the inevitable
orange. Next to the drinking fountain, which is decidedly the chief
attraction, comes the gorilla, and then the extinct animals. One stout
old lady, contemplating the megatherium and mastodon, inquires in what
parts "them creeturs" are to be found, and seems considerably damped by
being informed that Nature has been "out" of such articles for several
aeons. The mummies, with the bones of their toes sticking out, also come
in for a large share of admiration. There is a good deal of rough
flirtation going on; but, on the whole, the pleasure is rather of a
placid order, though still contrasting favourably with the settled gloom
visible on the faces of the attendants in the various galleries. How
well we can understand such gloom! How utterly hateful must that giant
elk and overgrown extinct armadillo be to a man condemned to spend a
lifetime in their close contemplation!

But let us pass on to the artistic Boxing-day keepers at the National
Gallery. The walk will take us through the Seven Dials, and can scarcely
fail to be suggestive. It is now one o'clock, the traditional hour of
dinner; and in Broad Street, St. Giles's, I see, for the first time
to-day, the human barometer evidently standing at "much wet." A
gentleman in a grey coat and red comforter, who bears palpable signs of
having been more than once on his back, has just reached that perplexing
point of inebriety when he can walk quickly or run, but cannot stand
still or walk steadily. He is pursued by small children, mo