midnight we presented ourselves at the portals of that virtuous but defunct institution, and were refused a box on the plea of inebriation. So indignant, however, were both myself and my blue-blooded if not blue-ribboned companion at this monstrous insinuation that we at once proceeded to Bow Street, and laid a formal complaint with the inspector on night duty. The books, and probably that official’s marginal notes, would doubtless place facts and our respective intellectual conditions at the time beyond the shadow of a doubt. For my own part, I confess (with that frankness that has always been my ruin) that if I was not absolutely inebriated, I was decidedly “fresh.” As regards my companion, however, I will not presume to venture an opinion, although High Sheriffs admittedly never get drunk;—is it likely, then, that this one, the pride of his county and an ornament to its Bench, could so far forget himself? Absurd! The sequel, however, has yet to be told; and a few nights afterwards, about 9 P.M., alone, and disguised as a gentleman in evening clothes, I went to the Night House and requested to see the proprietor. A bilious individual hereupon came into the passage, and, supported by a crowd of “chuckers out,” hurled me on to the verandah, where luck and my proximity to the worthy publican enabled me to deal one blow on a face, which eventually turned out to be that of Barnabas Amos; but a member of “the force” happened to be passing, and the gentle Amos, not content with having previously taken the law into his own hands with questionable success, now appealed to the constable, and, in short, gave me in charge for an assault. I will not weary the reader by a description of my detention for twenty minutes in the police station, till I was bailed out by a householder; nor of the proceedings next morning before the magistrate. Suffice it to say that the case was dismissed; that the daily papers honoured me by devoting half a column to a report of the case; that six months after, alone and unaided, I opposed the renewal of the licence for the night-house; that my thirst for revenge was thoroughly satiated; and that I had the gratification of depriving the Amos of a weekly profit of £300, besides about £500 for legal expenses; and that the Middlesex magistrates did their duty and proved themselves worthy of their responsible position by almost unanimously refusing the licence, despite the fervid and well fee’d eloquence of Solicitor-General and voracious barristers, and thus stamped out about as festering a heap of filth and garbage as any that had ever infested this modern Babylon. Mr. Barnabas Amos and I were thenceforth quits, and, barring a chuckle he no doubt had at my subsequent troubles (such as a less magnanimous person than myself might have had at his eventual bankruptcy), I may fairly congratulate myself on having had the best of the little encounter. But another feature of this case suggests itself, and I cannot dismiss this