of indigestion in the stomach,
and three hours more to come before we get to bed. You, my dear sir, hope
that on many occasions like the present you may see your friends around
you, looking as glassy-eyed as you have made them to look now. We will
rejoin the ladies.

Nothing but Champagne could have enabled us to keep up the evening so
well. We were getting weary before supper--but we have had some wine, have
dug the spur into our sides, and on we go again. At length, even the
bottle stimulates our worn-out company no more; and then we separate.
Good-night, dear sir; we have spent a Very Pleasant Evening under your
roof.

To-morrow, when you depart from a late breakfast, having seen your
daughter's face, and her boiled-mackerel eye, knowing that your wife is
bilious, and that your son has just gone out for soda-water, you will feel
yourself to be a Briton who has done his duty, a man who has paid
something on account of his great debt to civilized society.

IV. The Light Nuisance.

Tieck tells us, in his "History of the Schildbuerger," that the town
council of that spirited community was very wise. It had been noticed that
many worthy aldermen and common-councilors were in the habit of looking
out of window when they ought to be attending to their duties. A vote was
therefore, on one occasion, passed by a large majority, to this effect,
namely--Whereas the windows of the Town-hall are a great impediment to the
dispatch of public business, it is ordered that before the next day of
meeting they be all bricked up. When the next day of meeting came, the
worthy representatives of Schildbuerg were surprised to find themselves
assembling in the dark. Presently, accepting the unlooked-for fact, they
settled down into an edifying discussion of the question, whether darkness
was not more convenient for their purposes than daylight. Had you and I
been there, my friend, our votes in the division would have been, like the
vote in our own House of Commons a few days ago, for keeping out the Light
Nuisance as much as possible. Darkness is better than daylight, certainly.

Now this admits of proof. For, let me ask, where do you find the best part
of a lettuce?--not in the outside leaves. Which are the choice parts of
celery?--of course, the white shoots in the middle. Why, sir? Because light
has never come to them. They become white and luxurious by tying up, by
earthing up, by any contrivance which has kept the sun at bay