iest, dirtiest, and most
disconsolate garb. The streets are slippery with black mud and blacker
ice, a yellow halo surrounds the gas lamps, even the Bude lights look
quenched and uncomfortable; cabmen, peevish at the paucity of fares,
curse with triple intensity the wood pavement and the luckless garrons
that slide and stumble over it; the blue and benumbed fingers of Italian
grinders can scarcely turn the organ handles; tattered children and
half-starved women, pale, shivering, and tearful, pester the pedestrian
with offers of knitted wares, and of winter nosegays, meagre and
miserable as themselves. The popular cheerfulness and merry-making of
Christmas time are over, and have not yet been succeeded by the bustle
and gaiety of the fashionable world. London is abandoned to its million
of nobodies; the few thousands whose presence gives it life are still on
the list of absentees.

Mark the contrast. But a minute ago we were in London--dull, empty
London--and behold! we are in Paris--gay, crowded, lively Paris--now
at the height of its season, and in full swing of carnival dissipation.
By a process of which, since the days of Scheherazade, we alone possess
the secret, we have flown over Kent, skimmed the Channel, sped across
the uninteresting plains of Picardy, and are seated at dinner--where? In
the spacious saloon of the _Hotel des Princes_, at the succulent table
of the _Cafe de Paris_, or in the gaudy and dazzling apartments of the
_Maison Doree_? No matter. Or let us choose the last, the _Maison
Dedoree_ as it has been called, its external gilding having ill resisted
the assaults of winter's snows and summer's parching heat. But although,
as Mr. Moore of Ireland has informed us, all that's bright must fade, it
follows not that the substantial deteriorates with the superficial. And
the cookery of the _Maison Doree_ has improved as its gilding has rubbed
off, until even the _Cafe de Paris_ and the far-famed _Trois Freres_
must veil their inferior charms before the manifold perfections of this
Apician sanctuary. Here, then, we establish ourselves, in this snug
embrasure, whence we have a full view of the throng of diners, whilst
plate glass and a muslin curtain alone intervene between us and the
broad asphalt of the Boulevard. A morocco book, a sheet of vellum, and a
pencil, are before us. We write a dozen lines, and hand them to our
companion; he reads, nods approval, and transfers the precious document
to the smug an