s from inspiration;
but that Nicholas should undergo any change in any respect, was an event
we had never contemplated, and should have considered impossible. His
strong opinion against the clause which empowered the metropolitan
districts to return Members to Parliament, too, was perfectly
unaccountable.

We discovered the secret at last; the metropolitan Members always dined
at home. The rascals! As for giving additional Members to Ireland, it
was even worse--decidedly unconstitutional. Why, sir, an Irish Member
would go up there, and eat more dinner than three English Members put
together. He took no wine; drank table-beer by the half-gallon; and went
home to Manchester-buildings, or Millbank-street, for his
whiskey-and-water. And what was the consequence? Why, the concern
lost--actually lost, sir--by his patronage. A queer old fellow is
Nicholas, and as completely a part of the building as the house itself.
We wonder he ever left the old place, and fully expected to see in the
papers, the morning after the fire, a pathetic account of an old
gentleman in black, of decent appearance, who was seen at one of the
upper windows when the flames were at their height, and declared his
resolute intention of falling with the floor. He must have been got out
by force. However, he was got out--here he is again, looking as he
always does, as if he had been in a bandbox ever since the last session.
There he is, at his old post every night, just as we have described him:
and, as characters are scarce, and faithful servants scarcer, long may he
be there, say we!

Now, when you have taken your seat in the kitchen, and duly noticed the
large fire and roasting-jack at one end of the room--the little table for
washing glasses and draining jugs at the other--the clock over the window
opposite St. Margaret's Church--the deal tables and wax candles--the
damask table-cloths and bare floor--the plate and china on the tables,
and the gridiron on the fire; and a few other anomalies peculiar to the
place--we will point out to your notice two or three of the people
present, whose station or absurdities render them the most worthy of
remark.

It is half-past twelve o'clock, and as the division is not expected for
an hour or two, a few Members are lounging away the time here in
preference to standing at the bar of the House, or sleeping in one of the
side galleries. That singularly awkward and ungainly-looking man, in the
brownish-w