E OF THINGS.

The principal office of the Comic Paper was one of those amazingly
unsympathetic rooms in which the walls, windows and doors all have a
stiff, unsalient aspect of the most hard-finished indifference to every
emotion of humanity, and a perfectly rigid insensibility to the
pleasures or pains of the tenants within their impassive shelter. In the
whole configuration of the heartless, uncharacterized place there was
not one gracious inequality to lean against; not a ledge to rest elbow
upon; not a panel, not even a stove-pipe hole, to become dearly familiar
to the wistful eye; not so much as a genial crack in the plastering, or
a companionable rattle in a casement, or a little human obstinacy in a
door to base some kind of an acquaintance upon and make one less lonely.
Through the grim, untwinkling windows, gaping sullenly the wrong way
with iron shutters, came a discouraged light, strained through the
narrow intervals of the dusty roofs above, to discover a large
coffin-colored desk surmounted by ghastly busts of HERVEY, KEBLE and
BLAIR;[3] a smaller desk, over which hung a picture of the Tomb of
WASHINGTON, and at which sat a pallid assistant-editor in deep mourning,
opening the comic contributions received by last mail; a still smaller
desk, for the nominal writer of subscription-wrappers; files of the
_Evangelist_, _Observer_ and _Christian Union_ hanging along the wall; a
dead carpet of churchyard-green on the floor; and a print of Mr. PARKE
GODWIN just above the mantel of momumental marble.

Upon finding themselves in this temple of Momus, and observing that its
peculiar arrangement of sunshine made their complexions look as though
they had been dead a few days, Gospeler SIMPSON and the Flowerpot
involuntarily spoke in whispers behind their hands.

"Does that room belong to your establishment, also, BENTHAM?" whispered
the Gospeler, pointing rather fearfully, as he spoke, towards a
side-door leading apparently into an adjoining' apartment.

"Yes," was the low response.

"Is there--is there anybody dead in there?" whispered Mr. SIMPSON,
tremulously.

"No.--Not yet"

"Then," whispered the Ritualistic clergyman, "you might step in there,
Miss POTTS, and have your interview with Miss PENDRAGON, whom Mr.
BENTHAM will, I am sure, cause to be summoned from up-stairs."

The assistant-editor of the Comic Paper stealing softly from the office
to call the other young lady down, Mr. JEREMY BENTHAM made a s