lid.' The delicate, attractive creature we
have pictured to ourselves with pains in her limbs turns out, after
all, to be a hulking schoolboy, probably bilious from over-eating. The
public indignation is excessive, while the subject of it, quite
unconscious of the fact, has another plate of soup.

The wild weather out of doors is not, of course, confined to the land,
and the sea would be a fine sight if it was not invisible. The waves,
indeed, are so high that the fishing-boats which have remained out all
night are often warned off, or, as it is locally termed, 'burned off,'
from the harbour bar. A tar barrel is lighted for this purpose on the
headland, and it is the only thing which the eternal rain cannot
utterly squelch and extinguish. Occasionally we venture down upon the
pier to see the boats make the harbour, which, not a little to our
disappointment, they never fail to do. There are huge buttresses of
stone against the pier-head, behind which the new comer imagines he may
crouch in perfect safety, till the third wave comes in and convinces
him to the contrary. No one ever dreams of 'burning' _him_ off--giving
him one word of warning of that unpleasant contingency; for to behold a
fellow creature more drenched and dripping than ourselves is very
soothing. As to the dangers of maritime life, we are all agreed that
they are greatly overrated; and some sceptics even go so far as to
suggest that the skeleton ship, half embedded in the sands, which so
impresses visitors in fine weather, is not a genuine wreck at all, but
has been placed there by the Town Corporation to delude the public.

Now and then we splash down to the quay to see a few million of
herrings sold at four shillings a hundred, which will presently induce
philanthropic fishmongers in London to advertise 'a glut this morning,'
and to retail them at threepence apiece. At rare intervals we explore
the dripping town. It is amazing what a fascination the small
picture-shops, to which at home we should never give a glance, afford
us; even the frontispieces to popular music have unwonted attractions;
while the pottery-shops, full of ware made from clay 'peculiar to the
locality,' are only too seductive to our wives, who purchase largely
what they believe to be great bargains, till they find on their return
home the identical articles in Oxford Street, at half the price. In
London we never visit the British Museum itself, unless to escort some
country cousin,