e a short journey; but I should travel a great deal
more next year. I own to asking myself whether this could bear any
reference to the Pontigny Pilgrimage in which I shared this year, and
the possible pilgrimage to Rome next summer, and also a projected
journey to Scotland by the Limited Mail next Tuesday evening! On the
whole, my astrologer had scored a good many points.

The most marvellous revelation of all yet remains to be made, however.
When we rose to go we each of us endeavoured to force a fee on Professor
Smith, but nothing would induce him to receive a farthing! I had got all
my revelations, my "golden" memories of the past, my bright promises of
the future free, gratis, for nothing! It will be evident, then, why I do
not give this good wizard's address lest I inundate him with gratuitous
applicants, and why I therefore veil his personality under the
misleading title of Professor Smith of Newington Causeway.

CHAPTER XXVI.

A BARMAID SHOW.

The present age, denounced by some ungenial censors as the age of shams,
may be described by more kindly critics as emphatically an age of
"shows." Advancing from the time-honoured shows of Flora and Pomona--if
not always improving on the type--and so on from the cattle show,
suggestive of impending Christmas fare, we have had horse shows, dog
shows, and bird shows. To these the genius of Barnum added baby shows;
and, if we are not misinformed, a foreign firm, whose names have become
household words amongst us, originated, though not exactly in its
present form, the last kind of show which has been acclimatized in
England--an exhibition of barmaids. We had two baby shows in one
year--one at Highbury Barn by Mr. Giovannelli, the other at North
Woolwich Gardens by Mr. Holland; and it is to the talent of this latter
gentleman in the way of adaptation that we owe the exhibition of young
ladies "practising at the bar." From babies to barmaids is indeed a
leap, reversing the ordinary process of going from the sublime to the
ridiculous, for while to all but appreciative mammas those infantile
specimens of humanity savour largely of the ridiculous, there can be no
question that the present generation of _dames de comptoir_ is a very
sublime article indeed. I do not say this in derision, nor am I among
those who decry the improvements introduced during the last few years,
both into refreshment bars themselves, and notably into the class of
ladies who preside over them.