ch from this spot as we are ever
like to do. So much for the geography of our position, and now to look
after your breakfast. You have, of course, heard that we do not revel in
superfluities. Never was the boasted excellence of our national cookery
more severely tested, for we have successively descended from cows and
sheep to goats, horses, donkeys, dogs, occasionally experimenting on
hides and shoe leather, till we ended by regarding a rat as a rarity,
and deeming a mouse a delicacy of the season. As for vegetables, there
would not have been a flowering plant in all Genoa, if tulip and
ranunculus roots had not been bitter as aloes. These seem very
inhospitable confessions, but I make them the more freely since I am
about to treat you 'en Gourmet.' Come in now, and acknowledge that
juniper-bark isn't bad coffee, and that commissary bread is not to be
thought of 'lightly.'"

In this fashion did my comrade invite me to a meal, which, even with
this preface, was far more miserable and scanty than I looked for.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

MORBID IMPULSES.

"Please, sir, it's seven o'clock, and here's your hot wa'ar." I half
awoke, reflected moodily on the unhappy destiny of early risers; and
finally, after many turns and grunts, having decided upon defying all
engagements and duties, I fell asleep once more. In an instant I was
seated in the pit of Her Majesty's Theatre, gazing upon the curtain,
and, in common with a large and brilliant audience, anxiously awaiting
its arising, and the appearance of Duprez. The curtain does rise; the
orchestra are active; Duprez has bowed her thanks to an applauding
concourse; and the opera is half concluded: when, just as the theatre is
hushed into death-like silence for the great aria which is to test
Duprez's capacity and power, a mad impulse seizes hold of me. I have an
intense desire to yell. I feel as if my life and my eternal happiness
depend upon my emulating a wild Indian, or a London 'coster' boy. I look
round on the audience; I see their solemn faces; I note the swelling
bosom of the cantatrice, the rapt anxiety of the leader, and the dread
silence of the whole assembly, and I speculate on the surprise and
confusion a loud war-whoop yell would create; and though I foresee an
ignominious expulsion, perhaps broken limbs and disgraceful exposure in
the public prints, I can not resist the strange impulse; and throwing
myself back in my stall, I raise a wild cry, such as a cir