one penny; bath, two shillings; extra towels and soap for same, sixpence, and so on through the line. We found the Grosvenor another Gresham. However, as we wanted to stop at a swell hotel, we concluded--so long as we were there--to remain; but after a few days we found the cuisine "highly respectable;" that is, for dinner one could get roast--either beef or mutton. As for vegetables, we were strictly limited to turnips, cauliflowers, cabbage and potatoes, and, for dessert, the famous apple tart of England, more deadly even than our mince pie. [Illustration: SOME NATIVES I MET IN TAWNY, SPAIN.--Page 290.] The proprietor of a certain popular restaurant in New York has a fad for hanging elaborately got-up Scripture texts--exhortations mostly--around the walls of his restaurant. Interspersed with these are advertisements of his eatables--also exhortations--such as, "Try our buckwheat cakes, 10 cents;" "Try our doughnuts and coffee;" between the two exhortations, a third bidding one flee from the wrath to come; but the most fetching of all are two companion cards. On the one is the legend, "Try our hot mince pie;" on the other is displayed the apropos warning, "Prepare to meet thy God." So we resolved to sleep at the Grosvenor, but to avoid the apple tart. We soon discovered a good restaurant near by, where we dined, and, as I am on the subject of dining, I will finish this chapter with a little narrative, the moral of which I will leave my readers to find: We were now settled down in London, prepared to devote all our attention to that Old Lady--The B. of E.--and, in accordance with a habit of ours, we began to look for some safe place--hotel, cafe or restaurant--where we could meet, run in at any time for consultation, or to write notes. Three things were requisite--nearness to the money centre of the city, a room where we could be secluded from people coming and going, and a proprietor clever enough not to be inquisitive, with a genius for minding his own business. A man who has a genius for that thing always carries it in his face, just as his opposite--the busybody--carries the traces of his restless inquisitiveness in the face and manner. That same day we discovered, in a small street leading off Finsbury, a shop with a sign over the door bearing the legend: "Licensed to sell spirits and caterer." It had canned and potted meats, along with bottles of wine, in the window, but was evidently fast going to seed. We pushed our way in and found a bright, fresh-looking young Englishman, evidently a countryman, but intelligent and civil, much like a gamekeeper. We knew at once we had our place and man. After some weeks we observed, now and then, a couple of sharp-looking customers hanging about the place.