knowledge that we are in the
outer court of one of King Champagne's many palaces. _Mem._ Grand idea
for a scene in a Drury Lane Pantomime. Visit to Palace of POPPIN THE
FIRST, king of the Champagne country. Register copyright and suggest
it to Sir DRURY O'LANUS.

[Illustration]

DAUBINET has his hat in his hand and his overcoat over his arm.
With his handkerchief he is mopping his fevered brow. "_Piff!_" he
exclaims, "_qu'il fait chaud!_ No? You don't find it? I do. _Caramba!
O Champagnski! da Karascho! O Maman!_ Come on! Here is our leader, _le
bon_ VESQUIER! _Allons! Marchons!_ Long to reign over us!"--then as we
move forward, DAUBINET again bursts into song, as usual more or less
out of tune. This time he favours us with snatches of "_God save the
Queen!_" and finally, as we enter a huge tunnel, and, as I judge from
the steep incline, are commencing our descent into the cave, I hear
his voice behind me singing "We're leaving thee in sorrow, ANNIE!"

Darker and darker as we descend through this tunnel. Orpheus going to
find Eurydice. No Cerberus about, thank goodness. Wonder if any rats
or blackbeetles? By the way, Cerberus would have been a nasty one for
rats. Cerberus, with three to one on him ("Heads I win--tails you rats
lose"), doing a match against time in killing rats, is a fine subject
for a weird classical picture yet to be painted. What R.A. could
grapple with so tremendous a composition? On returning to "carp the
upper air," must mention the subject to Sir FREDERICK the Great.
Cerberus would be a nasty one for rats to tackle. My ideas of anything
alive underground are generally associated with suchlike warmint.
At last--out of the tunnel! and now, I presume, in the caves. Here
someone, gradually assuming a palpable form, emerges from somewhere
out of a dark corner, and hands to each of us a long piece of wood
about the length of a harlequin's bat (_note_, pantomime again), only
that this is an inch or so thick and quite two inches wide at one end,
where presently a candle is fixed by an attendant sprite,--the slave
of the tallow candle,--and the wand, so to speak, tapers off towards
the handle. _A propos_ of "tapers off"--the question occurs to me,
later on, as we pass through labyrinths of dark passages, where should
I be in the case of "taper off"? Beautiful title for sensational
story--"Lost in the Catacombs."

Our trusty guide, M. VESQUIER, is well ahead, and DAUBINET follows
closely at my heels. T