ts on lodgers--if so, my dinners will be rather like
the banquet GULLIVER had at Laputa. "Has she rooms to let at once?"
"No?" "_Oh!_" Well out of _that!_

3.45.--Warming to my work. Ring at door in "Amelia Terrace." Maid
appears--nice-looking girl, rather. "Have you"--I begin--when I see a
boy at the ground-floor window. Don't object to boys, as a class, but
this particular boy is pallid, with something round his throat, and an
indescribable air about him of conscious deadliness, and pride in the
unusual terror he inspires, which can only be accounted for by
recent Measles. Never under the same roof with _that_ boy! He eyes me
balefully, and I stare back, fascinated. "Have you," I begin
again--(I am full of resource, thank goodness!) "a Mrs. WALKER--(first
appropriate name that occurs to me)--staying here?" By a horrible
coincidence, they _have_! She has taken the ground-floor--where that
boy is! Awkward--very.... I manage to gasp out, "Then will you
please mention that I called?" and retire before she can ask my name.
Presence of mind, again!

4 P.M.--Still seeking. Not so fastidious as I _was_. Have given up
the cottage, and clematis, and flagstaff. Only place answering that
description belongs--or so I inferred, from his language--to a retired
sea-captain, whom I disturbed in his nap to inquire whether he let
lodgings. As it happened, he _didn't_. Then (as I very nearly went
back and told him) what right had he to sport a brass plate? However,
I got some good racy dialogue for the Nautical Drama out of him.

4.15.--More failures. Starmouth busy digesting, which it does publicly
in bow-windows. I must _not_ be so particular. I will do without
balconies--even bow-windows--but I cannot, I will not, sit on
horsehair furniture.

4.20.--After all, so long as I get a sea-view, what matters? I can be
nautical and dramatic on _any_ kind of chair. And "Collingwood House,"
too--what a name for me! I will go in. Rejected again--nothing till
Thursday fortnight! I am beginning to feel like an unpopular man at
a dance. I regard the people wallowing at the windows with a growing
hate; they are the elect--but that is no reason why they should parade
it in that ostentatious way--bad taste!... Can't get any rooms along
these terraces--I subdue my pride, and try a back-street.

4.30.--Nature too strong for me--I _must_ face the sea. Surely there
must be _some_ cards I have overlooked!... Thought so! staring me in
the face all the