"This seems a very pretty little town," said Ned Hayward, choosing the first free subject at hand; "quite rural, and with all the tranquillity of the country about it." "It is indeed," answered Mr. Beauchamp; "but I should almost have supposed that a gayer place would have pleased you more. Were you never here before?" "Never in my life," replied his companion; "but you are quite mistaken about my tastes. London, indeed, is a very pleasant place for three months or so; but one soon gets tired of it. It gets slow, devilish slow after a while. One cannot go to the theatre every night. There is little use of going to balls and parties, and risking falling in love if one has not got money enough to marry. One gets weary of the faces and the houses in St. James's-street. Morning visits are the greatest bores in the world. Epsom and Ascot are good enough things in their way, but they are soon over for one who does not bet and runs no horses. The newspapers tire me to death--romances I abominate; and though a good opera comes in twice a-week to lighten the load a little, it gets desperate heavy on one's shoulders before the first of July. Antiquaries, connoisseurs, lawyers, physicians, fiddlers, and portrait-painters, with merchants, and all the bees of the hive, may find London a very pleasant and profitable place. I am nothing but a drone, and so I fly away in the country. Of all towns after the second month, I hate London the most--except a manufacturing town indeed, and that is always horrible, even to change horses in." "And yet perhaps," answered Beauchamp, "a manufacturing town offers subjects of deeper interest than any other spot of the earth--especially at the present moment." "Not in themselves, surely," said Ned Hayward; "the abstract idea of broad cloth is to me very flat, cotton-spinning not particularly exciting, iron ware is far too hard for me to handle, and as for the production of soda and pearlash, I have no genius that way. But I suppose," he continued, "you mean that the manufacturing towns are interesting from their bearing upon the prosperity of the country; but in that case it is your speculations regarding them that interest you, not the places themselves."