th me when
I go to my work.

How fortunate it is for one that these flowers are Londoners in their
habits, and pass August in the city! I can go to their receptions daily,
if I choose; they are always at home to the poorest, the most
unfashionable; they keep no 'visiting book' in their hall.

Hark! the bell rings seven o'clock. There is a 'knocking at the gate'
of my fairy land; it warns me that I must be on my Washington-street
way, to earn my bread.

_Bien!_ my first meal of to-day has been satisfactory. Heaven hath sent
me all manner of manna for breakfast--and for lunch? a banana. Yes; on
my way 'down town' I shall pass the Studio Building, where the B.'s
live; I will buy one of them, but shall also steal--many glances at the
Hamburg grapes, those peachiest of peaches, bombastic blackberries, and,
O Pomona! _such_ pears.

I escape! purse uninjured, only bananared. I reach Winter street, where
I must turn my back on the Common pleasures of Boston life--but yet, one
glance at that seductive window of the corner store, which, indeed, is
nearly all window. Flowers are there, of course,--flowers from January
to January; any poor devil can have a temporary conservatory at that
window, 'all for nothing;' I ought to pay a yearly tax for the pleasure
I steal in that way. The woman who carries my portmonnaie, only permits
me to open it for the 'necessaries' of life: the luxuries of hot-house
grapes and flowers ever wear for me that fatal label: 'Touch not, taste
not.' Bread and cologne are, of course, the first necessities of life;
in rolls and religion I am a Parkerite; in cologne, I swear by 'Mrs.
Taylor'! Beacon street, I beg that you won't faint at this horrible
disclosure!

Who _is_ 'Mrs. Taylor'? and echo answers, 'We haven't the faintest odor
of an idea!' None know her but to praise, wherever she may be. With
Sancho Panza we say, 'Blessings on the man who invented Mrs. Taylor at
seventy-five cents _per_--the hock bottle. I catch a glimpse of her long
neck, stretching up among the roses and Geraniums: my cologne nature
can't resist that sight! I obey the syren's call, though it will leave
me a beggar, but with Mrs. T. in my chaste-embrace.

'The man I work for' treats me, for some reason, with 'distinguished
consideration.' Though I may sometimes be a little after the required
hour, it's all right; and though he's a Yankee, no questions are asked!
I still have a precious quarter remaining--not of a dollar, but of