Perhaps in all the gamut of human sensibility there can be no more creepy sensation than that of being lost in familiar surroundings. The ruler of Hades himself, or Jupiter with his thunderbolts, could not invent a more refined torture than that consummated in the paradox: “Here I am!--Where am I?” Yet, how ordinary has this impression become to the dweller in London. “Here, boy! can you tell me where I am? I thought I was near the South Kensington Station, but--I begin to be horribly puzzled. That great thing opposite looks just like the Parthenon!” “Parth yer on!” exclaims a little urchin, apparently emerging from nowhere, and brandishing a torch as big as himself--“Parth, did yer say? Yer on the parth roight enough! Want a loight, loidy?” he adds, reserving further information until he is sure of a customer. “Yes, yes, to be sure! Don’t leave me whatever you do! Where am I?” distractedly. “What is that place opposite? I saw it a moment ago, but--it’s gone again!” A pause--similar to that which precedes each new slide at a magic-lantern show--follows this speech, then out of the darkness comes the excited exclamation: “There! there it is! Now, what is it?” “That there?” hoarsely mutters our impish guide with a grin. “Why, that there’s the Kensin’ton Mooseum.” “The Kensington Museum! Surely it can’t be! Why, it is the very place I have been looking for for hours past. Do you think you can get me across?” “Git yer across!” with an accent of scorn, “o’ corse I can git yer across. You just keep close alonga me, loidy, and we’ll git over in two ticks.” With torch held aloft and a hopeful heart he makes a start and--returns to the comparative safety of the pavement. Then he makes a second hoppy trial--with the same result. We begin to feel nervous, and search in our memory for some battle-cry or epic poem with which to fortify our courage, and drop upon Montrose’s lines: “He either fears his fate too much, Or his deserts are small, Who dares not put it to the touch To gain or lose it all.” “Now then, ’ere you are, look sharp!” shouts our familiar urchin, utterly ignoring our poetic mutterings. Straight away he plunges into the chaos like an arrow shot from a bow. We follow blindly, breathlessly, with the grace of a polar bear after a gadfly, and in an incredibly short space of time reach the safety of the Museum doorway. What a transformation scene greets our eyes when we enter! Here is a little Paradise indeed: food, warmth, light, and all the treasures of the Universe besides. Without--we know--are horrors worse than Bluebeard’s dungeons or the Underground Railway at Gower Street. But what matter to us now if the sky rains salt herrings and the streets be full of roaring bulls, for we are safe from the great Babel, although we can see its stir if we will.