nd there still might be
detected the remains of its once gorgeous embellishment in the faint
forms of faded deities and the traces of murky gilding. The walls of
this apartment were crowded with pictures, arranged, however, with
little regard to taste, effect, or style. A sprawling copy of Titian's
Venus flanked a somewhat prim peeress by Hoppner; a landscape that
smacked of Gainsborough was the companion of a dauby moonlight, that
must have figured in the last exhibition; and insipid Roman matrons by
Hamilton, and stiff English heroes by Northcote, contrasted with a vast
quantity of second-rate delineations of the orgies of Dutch boors and
portraits of favourite racers and fancy dogs. The room was crowded with
ugly furniture of all kinds, very solid, and chiefly of mahogany; among
which were not less than three escritoires, to say nothing of the huge
horsehair sofas. A sideboard of Babylonian proportions was crowned
by three massive and enormous silver salvers, and immense branch
candlesticks of the same precious metal, and a china punch-bowl which
might have suited the dwarf in Brobdignag. The floor was covered with
a faded Turkey carpet. But amid all this solid splendour there were
certain intimations of feminine elegance in the veil of finely-cut
pink paper which covered the nakedness of the empty but highly-polished
fire-place, and in the hand-screens, which were profusely ornamented
with ribbon of the same hue, and one of which afforded a most accurate
if not picturesque view of Margate, while the other glowed with a huge
wreath of cabbage-roses and jonquils.

Ferdinand was not long alone, and Mr. Levison, the proprietor of all
this splendour, entered. He was a short, stout man, with a grave
but handsome countenance, a little bald, but nevertheless with an
elaborateness of raiment which might better have become a younger man.
He wore a plum-colored frock coat of the finest cloth; his green velvet
waistcoat was guarded by a gold chain, which would have been the envy
of a new town council; an immense opal gleamed on the breast of his
embroidered shirt; and his fingers were covered with very fine rings.

'Your sarvant, Captin,' said Mr. Levison, and he placed a chair for his
guest.

'How are you, Levison?' responded our hero in an easy voice. 'Any news?'

Mr. Levison shrugged his shoulders, as he murmured, 'Times is very bad,
Captin.'

'Oh! I dare say,' said Ferdinand; 'I wish they were as well with me as
with