ith a little note of introduction from Sir Sedley. I found Mr. Pike
exactly the man I had anticipated from Trevanion's character,--short,
quick, intelligent, in question and answer; imposing and somewhat
domineering in manner; not overcrowded with business, but with enough
for experience and respectability; neither young nor old; neither a
pedantic machine of parchment, nor a jaunty off-hand coxcomb of West End
manners.

"It is an ugly affair," said he, "but one that requires management.
Leave it all in my hands for three days. Don't go near Mr. Tibbets nor
Mr. Peck; and on Saturday next, at two o'clock, if you will call here,
you shall know my opinion of the whole matter." With that Mr. Pike
glanced at the clock, and I took up my hat and went.

There is no place more delightful than a great capital if you are
comfortably settled in it, have arranged the methodical disposal of your
time, and know how to take business and pleasure in due proportions. But
a flying visit to a great capital in an unsettled, unsatisfactory
way; at an inn--an inn in the City too--with a great, worrying load of
business on your mind, of which you are to hear no more for three days,
and an aching, jealous, miserable sorrow at the heart such as I had,
leaving you no labor to pursue and no pleasure that you have the heart
to share in,--oh, a great capital then is indeed forlorn, wearisome, and
oppressive! It is the Castle of Indolence, not as Thomson built it, but
as Beckford drew in his Hall of Eblis,--a wandering up and down, to and
fro; a great, awful space, with your hand pressed to your heart; and--oh
for a rush on some half-tamed horse through the measureless green wastes
of Australia! That is the place for a man who has no home in the Babel,
and whose hand is ever pressing to his heart, with its dull, burning
pain.

Mr. Squills decoyed me the second evening into one of the small
theatres; and very heartily did Mr. Squills enjoy all he saw and all he
heard. And while, with a convulsive effort of the jaws, I was trying
to laugh too, suddenly in one of the actors, who was performing the
worshipful part of a parish beadle, I recognized a face that I had
seen before. Five minutes afterwards I had disappeared from the side of
Squills, and was amidst that strange world,--Behind The Scenes.

My beadle was much too busy and important to allow me a good opportunity
to accost him till the piece was over. I then seized hold of him as he
was amicab