‘Well, the fact is, London is the last place in the world for anyone to visit. It is too big, too crowded, too noisy, too fatiguing, and at every step you are surrounded with danger. The omnibus and the cab ever threaten one with annihilation, and the pickpocket is always on the watch. The bicycle is a terror by night, as is the irrepressible youngster who converts every quiet corner into a skating-rink. As to the air you breathe, it is full of microbes; your daily bread is white with alum. A wise man will also avoid its milk and cream and water. Yet all of us have to go to London more or less, and there are people who can live nowhere else. Human nature can easily assimilate itself to the conditions which surround it. Fortunately, there is a good deal of indiarubber in all of us. Of this the Londoner avails himself, and thinks himself the finest, smartest, cleverest fellow in the world, though he sees Brother Jonathan shutting him out of his markets, and opens his doors to foreign paupers, whom not a Government under heaven save his own would tolerate for a moment.’ ‘Well, you’re right there. But what is your particular grievance?’ ‘Grievances, you may say. They are like the hairs on my head; which, by-the-bye, are not so numerous as they were once.’ ‘So I see,’ said Wentworth with a smile. ‘To make the most of a short visit to London,’ continued the speaker, ‘you must arrange your plans, and I did mine. My first object was to find out a gentleman who had written to me. Before leaving home, I had written to say that I would call on him on the Tuesday at his chambers in Pall Mall. When in due time I got there, I found he had gone to Scotland for ten days, but that his son had opened my letter and had waited for me till twelve o’clock, when he had started for an estate which his father was laying out with a view to building operations. Accordingly, I resolved to follow him, and then my troubles began. I started on an omnibus for Euston station; arrived there, I partook of luncheon, having twenty minutes to wait. “How do the trains run to Bushey?” I asked of an official. “There is one at twenty minutes to two, and another at the quarter,” was the reply; and I learned on the same reliable authority that the quarter to two train got there first. Accordingly, I waited for it, and when the guard came round to inspect the tickets, he confirmed what the official in the hall had said; adding that I was to change at Harrow. It was thus with a light heart I started, and left the train at Harrow, feeling sure that in a few minutes I should be landed at my destination. Alas, the train had gone, and I had to wait, sad and solitary, for an hour. At Bushey, a woman on whom I called informed me that her husband and the gentleman of whom I was in search had gone to the Board School. It is needless to add that they had done nothing of the kind. In the dust and under a blazing sun, I made my way to an