le to you. But we have not done so. We have been strongly tempted
to think, that after waiting from week to week, you have never arrived at
anything interesting. We could not bear this jerking of our conscience,
which was no sooner ended than begun again.

Most "passages in a tale of _any length_ depend materially for the
interest on the intimate relation they bear to what has gone before, or
what is to follow." We sometimes found it difficult to accomplish this.

Considerations of immediate profit ought, in such cases, to be of
secondary importance; but, for the reasons we have just mentioned, we have
(after some pains to resist the temptation) determined to abandon this
_scheme_ of publication.

Taking advantage of the respite which the close of this work will afford
us, we have decided in January next to rent a second floor at Kentish
Town.

The pleasure we anticipate from the realisation of a wish we have long
entertained and long hoped to gratify, is subdued by the reflection that
we shall find it somewhat difficult to emancipate our moveables from the
thraldom of Mrs. Gibbons, our respected but over-particular landlady.

To console the numerous readers of PUNCH, we have it in command to
announce, that on Saturday, Nov. 27th, the first chapter of a series under
the title of the "Puff Papers," appropriately illustrated, will be
commenced, with a desire to supply the hiatus in periodical fiction,
occasioned by the temporary seclusion of one of the most popular novelists
of the day.

Dear friends, farewell! Should we again desire to resume the pen, we trust
at your hands we shall not have to encounter a

[Illustration: DISPUTED RETURN.]

* * * * *

THE LAMBETH DEMOSTHENES.

We are happy to find that Dr. Tully Cicero Burke Sheridan Grattan Charles
Phillips Hobler Bedford has not been deterred by the late unsatisfactory
termination to the "public meeting" called by him to address the Queen,
from prosecuting his patriotic views for his own personal advantage. Dr.
&c. Bedford has kindly furnished us with the report of a meeting called by
himself, which consisted of himself, for the purpose of considering the
propriety of petitioning the Throne to appoint himself to be
medical-adviser-in-general to her Majesty, and vaccinator-in-particular to
his little Highness the Prince of Wales.

At 10 o'clock precisely Dr. &c. Bedford entered the little back parlour of
his surgery, and adv