aradisaical tabernacle of a dormitory, there had
suddenly rung through the house the cry of FIRE--FIRE--FIRE! how was Dr
Kitchiner to get out? Tables, bureaus, benches, chairs, blocked up the
only door--all laden with wash-hand basins and other utensils, the whole
crockery shepherdesses of the chimney-piece, double-barrelled pistols
with spring bayonets ready to shoot and stab, without distinction of
persons, as their proprietor was madly seeking to escape the roaring
flames! Both windows are iron-bound, with all their shutters, and over
and above tightly fastened with "the cork-screw fastening, the simplest
that we have seen." The wind-board is in like manner, and by the same
unhappy contrivance, firmly jammed into the jaws of the chimney, so
egress to the Doctor up the vent is wholly denied--no fire-engine in the
town--but one under repair. There has not been a drop of rain for a
month, and the river is not only distant but dry. The element is
growling along the galleries like a lion, and the room is filling with
something more deadly than back-smoke. A shrill voice is heard
crying--"Number 5 will be burned alive! Number 5 will be burned alive!
Is there no possibility of saving the life of Number 5?" The Doctor
falls down before the barricado, and is stretched all his hapless length
fainting on the floor. At last the door is burst open, and landlord,
landlady, chambermaid, and boots--each in a different key--from manly
bass to childish treble, demand of Number 5 if he be a murderer or a
madman--for, gentle reader, it has been a--Dream.

We must hurry to a close, and shall perform the short remainder of our
journey on foot. The first volume of the Oracle concludes with
"Observations on Pedestrians." Here we are at home--and could, we
imagine, have given the Doctor a mile in the hour in a year-match. The
strength of man, we are given distinctly to understand by the Doctor, is
"in the ratio of the performance of the restorative process, which is as
the quantity and quality of what he puts into his stomach, the energy of
that organ, and the quantity of exercise he takes." This statement of
the strength of man may be unexceptionably true, and most philosophical
to those who are up to it--but to us it resembles a definition we have
heard of thunder, "the conjection of the sulphur congeals the matter."
It appears to us that a strong stomach is not the sole constituent of a
strong man--but that it is not much amiss to be provi