In pursuance of this desperate resolution he rose the following morning in time for church, and betook himself after service to his usual Sunday resort, the Cauliflower Club. Here, seated at a desert of writing-table, in a vast and dismal library, he had an opportunity of comparing the gloom that reigned within and without this sanctuary of his sex. Foreigners can seldom recall unmoved the memories of a Sunday in London. Whether it is because the shops are shut, or the streets unwatered, or the upper classes invisible, I know not, but certainly on that holy day of rest and rejoicing, our bustling metropolis looks grim and deserted as a city of the dead. Doubtless, everybody goes out of town that can. Those who remain, thinking it, I presume, either eccentric or wicked to be seen abroad, hide themselves with extraordinary caution and success. The same dulness seems to pervade all parts of the town, except, perhaps, those very poor districts in which vice and want allow their vassals no change, no relaxation from the daily round of dirt, discomfort, and sin. You may traverse Tyburnia and scarce meet a human creature. Belgrave Square is sombre and noiseless as the catacombs. A single Hansom represents traffic, vitality, and commercial prosperity throughout Mayfair, Piccadilly, and St. James's Street. Go into Hyde Park, you will observe one solitary soldier, and his inevitable maid-servant, carrying her prayer-book wrapped in a cotton pocket-handkerchief. Search Kensington Gardens, you will find that beautiful woodland occupied by a sleeping ragamuffin, a child with its sister, and a wandering female of weak intellect. From Brompton to Billingsgate, from Mary-le-bone to the Minories, you will discover as few passengers as you would see flies on a pane of glass at Christmas. What becomes of the winter bluebottles I do not pretend to say, but of the two-legged insects pervading our earth, I imagine that on Sundays the males retire, like Goldthred, in countless swarms to their clubs. Nevertheless, while he wrote the invitations, particularly Miss Hallaton's, with exceeding care and a hard-nibbed pen, he found himself the only occupant but one of the magnificent apartment, devoted to literary labour by a judicious committee presiding over the economy of the Cauliflower. Of the student thus sharing his solitude, and who might or might not be an intimate acquaintance, nothing was visible but the back of a curly brown head, as its wearer lay buried in an enormous sofa, reading, or more probably, asleep. Club-manners, except in certain professional circles where members are bound by their trade in a common brotherhood, forbidding such outrages, Goldthred, even had he been inclined, must have forborne from hurling books across the room, stealing behind to flirt ink on his face, or adopting other such playful modes of attracting notice, and assuring himself of the gentleman's identity, so he continued to write with precision and perseverance,