m, of moderate size, while
the small ones are very small indeed; and into these small rooms he has
stuck large four-post beds, that make them darker and more inconvenient
than they naturally are, and leave room for hardly any of the usual
evolutions of the toilette. What, indeed, with the big chests of
drawers, like the big sideboard in the dining-room, it is as much as you
can do to get about conveniently between the bed and the side walls;
though one good thing the builder and furnisher have certainly
effected--you can open the bed-room door, and you can stir the fire, and
you can almost pull up the window-blind, without quitting the protection
of the counterpane; and this on a cold morning is something.

Mrs Johnson says that the arrangement of the area gate in Paragon Place
is perfection itself; for she can see the butcher's boy as he comes for
his orders of a morning, while sitting at the breakfast-table, through
the green blinds, and that the policeman dares not stop there, during
daylight at least--she should be much too sharp upon him; so that the
cook is twice as punctual as when they lived in the city. True; these
are points of household management that have their weight; but then Mrs
J. forgets that the dustman rings his bell there at most inconvenient
hours, that the dirty coalheaver spoils the pavement once a month, and
that it is a perpetual running up and down those stone steps, to shut
the gate and keep dogs and beggars out, all day. However, the railings
and the gate are not part of the house; and, if people like to have
their back-doors under their eyes, why, there is no accounting for their
taste.

We could not help thinking, the last time we went over to Paris, that
our friend Dubois, the wine-merchant--him from whom we get our
Chambertin, and who has about the same relative income as Johnson--was
much better housed. His cellars are down at the Halle aux Vins, like
every body else's; and he is shut up there in his little box of a
counting-house nine hours every day of his life; but he lives, now that
he has moved from the Marais, in the Rue Neuve des Mathurins, which
leads out of the Chaussee d'Antin. Here he has a _premier_, as they call
it in Paris--or a first-floor, as we should term it in London; and he
pays 2000 francs, or L80 a-year for it, with about 100 francs of rates
and taxes. For this he has two drawing-rooms, a dining-room, a study,
six bed-rooms, kitchens, and cellars; some of the room