lerks of
London--hurried about with the horrid consciousness of exposing their
costliest garments to the "pelting of the pitiless storm." Evening stole
on. A London twilight has nothing of the pale grey comfort that is
diffused by that gradual change from day to night which I have experienced
when seated by the hearth or the open window of a rural home. There it
seems like the very happiness of nature--a pause between the burning
passions of meridian day and the dark, sorrowing loneliness of night; but
in London on it comes, or rather down it comes, like the mystic medium in
a pantomime--it is a thing that you will not gaze on for long; and you
rush instinctively from daylight to candle-light. I stopped in front of an
old-fashioned public-house, and soon (being a connoisseur in these
matters) satisfied myself that if comfort were the desideratum, "The heart
that was humble might hope for it here." I shook the snow from my
"Petersham," and seeing the word "parlour" painted in white letters on a
black door, bent my steps towards it. I was on the point of opening the
door, when a slim young man, with a remarkable small quantity of hair,
stopped my onward coarse by gurgling rather than ejaculating--for the
sentence seemed a continuous word--

"Can't-go-in-there-Sir."

"Why not?" said I."

"Puffs-Sir."

"Puffs!"

"Yes-Sir,--Tues'y night--Puffs-meets-on-Tues'y," and then addressing a
young girl in the bar, delivered an order for "One-rum-one-bran'y-one
gin-no-whisky-all-'ot," which I afterwards found to signify one glass of
each of the liqueurs.

I was about to remonstrate against the exclusiveness of the "Puffs," when
recollecting the proverbial obduracy of waiters, I contented myself with
buttoning my coat. My annoyance was not diminished by hearing the hearty
burst of merriment called forth by some jocular member of this _terra
incognita_, but rendered still more distressing by the appearance of the
landlord, who emerged from the room, his eyes streaming with those tears
that nature sheds over an expiring laugh.

"You have a merry party _concealed_ there, Master Host," said I.

"Ye-ye-s-Sir, very," replied he, and tittered again, as though he were
galvanizing his defunct merriment.

"Quite exclusive?"

"Quite, Sir, un-unless you are introduced--Oh dear!" and having mixed a
small tumbler of toddy, he disappeared into that inner region of smoke
from which I was separated by the black door endorsed "_Parlour_."