eferences. Here you can live as in chambers in
the Temple, only very much more comfortably, with domestics always at
hand yet never intruding, and free from that intolerable surveillance
that a London lodging-house keeper thinks it her duty to keep on her
patrons. As long as you pay your rent you may keep your own hours and
select your own company. (MRS. P--RK--NS I fear never reads your paper,
Sir, or she could not fail to be of a sweeter temper than she is; but,
on the chance of her seeing this number, allow me to tell her that she
is like a toad, both ugly and also venomous, likewise a dragon, and in
other respects objectionable, while the curtains of her first-floor are
a standing miracle, containing as they do, in successive strata, vermin
that flourished in the beginning of the present century. Moreover, I did
not purchase that case of curious old Champagne brandy with any view to
encourage her in intemperance, which is disgusting in all, and
especially in females.)

As you walk in the streets far from home you can satisfy any want,
however minute or unexpected, down to having your clothes brushed, your
boots cleaned (by the way, Parisian boot-cleaning is an utter and total
failure), or even having your nails cut. This last does not strike an
Englishman as much of a luxury; but we must remember that here a
paternal government has, in its tender care for home cutlery, decreed
that no Frenchman shall be able to purchase a decent knife, razor, or
pair of scissors, under about twice its value.

Your Correspondent, whose meditative mind leads him to trace causes in
their effects, attributes to this policy the length of beard and
fingernails which distinguishes, if it does not adorn, all ranks here
(he flatters himself that the connexion between cutlery and cleanliness
has not been remarked upon before). You can also have your corns chopped
about, if you have any fancy for permanent lameness, at a very moderate
figure. In short, every operation of the toilet may be gone through by
means of a short series of visits without opening your dressing-case.

You have the gayest promenades in the world, and if it rains, abundance
of cover with rather more opportunity of amusing yourself than there is
in the Burlington Arcade, for there is always a bustle, and everything
you see is pretty, except the women. A few sous for a cup of coffee or a
glass of liqueur entitle you to spend your whole afternoon in a _cafe_,
ventilated and