OLT'S
Have been wasted because not wanted,
Had we been without guard--neither bolted nor barred--
Though we'd spent less (for that is granted),
Shouldn't we have looked glum if a burglar had come,
And with our goods levanted?

"I appeal to the room, why mayn't we assume
That the very precautions we've taken
Against EPHRAIM'S advice, may have been the price
At which we have saved our bacon?"
"Hear, hear!" cried the crowd. Police were allowed;
And the faith in EPHRAIM was shaken.

* * * * *

OUR TOURIST IN PARIS.--NO. 8.

Frenchmen are accustomed to boast, and with reason, that Paris is the
best stranger's city in the world. If you were dropped from the skies
into the Place de la Bourse with nothing, as people say, but what you
stand upright in, in five minutes you might have the advantages of a
complete establishment. Under that archway you find a Brougham, which is
at your service for two francs an hour, and a trifle to the man. The
turn-out is not of course dazzling, and the coachman drives with a rein
in each hand and his whip over his shoulder; but equipages in general
are not very stylish here, and the whole thing is decent, clean, and
comfortable. Your Tourist would not undervalue the London Hansom; it is
an incomparable carriage of its kind, and has become a necessity for
young men of fashion like himself. Bowling down Piccadilly to St.
James's Street at fifteen miles an hour under the whip of one of the
tremendously swell cabmen who ply in those parts, is a perfectly unique
pleasure. But you can't take your wife or your sister with you in such a
rampant vehicle; and if you have no carriage of your own, you will feel
the advantage of having a decent _coupe_ within call at cab fare.

Then, without the trouble of carrying a wonderful lamp about with
you--which would be excessively inconvenient, not to say
ungentlemanlike, to our notions--you can instantaneously command the
services of a slave at the moderate price of a franc per errand. In
London, unless a man has an establishment of servants, or is staying at
an hotel, he must go his errands himself, or trust the questionable
fidelity of a crossing sweeper.

Having hired your carriage and servants, you can at once find a lodging
of any degree of pretension (ornamented with five-and-forty clocks, if
you like, and as many looking glasses), where you take up your abode
without being bored for r