I find myself in the Umfraville Hotel, a quarter of a mile long by a furlong deep; in a ghastly room, five-and-twenty feet square, and eighteen high,—that is to say, just four times as big as I want, and which I can no more light with my candles in the evening than I could the Peak cavern. A gas apparatus in the middle of it serves me to knock my head against, but I take good care not to light it, or I should soon be stopped from my evening’s work by a headache, and be unfit for my morning’s business besides. The carpet is threadbare, and has the look of having been spat upon all over. There is only one window, of four huge panes of glass, through which one commands a view of a plaster balcony, some ornamental iron railings, an esplanade,—and,—well, I suppose,—in the distance, that is really the sea, where it used to be. I am ashamed to ask for shrimps,—not that I suppose I could get any if I did. There’s no cream, “because, except in the season, we could only take so small a quanity, sir.” The bread’s stale, because it’s Sunday; and the cheese, last night, was of the cheapest tallow sort. The bill will be at least three times my old bill;—I shall get no thanks from anybody for paying it;—and this is what the modern British public thinks is “living in style.” But the most comic part of all the improved arrangements is that I can only have codlings for dinner, because all the cod goes to London, and none of the large fishing-boats dare sell a fish, here. And now but a word or two more, final, as to the fixed price of this book. A sensible and worthy tradesman writes to me in very earnest terms of expostulation, blaming me for putting the said book out of the reach of most of the persons it is meant for, and asking me how I can except, for instance, the working men round him (in Lancashire),—who have been in the habit of strictly ascertaining that they have value for their money,—to buy, for tenpence, what they know might be given them for twopence-halfpenny. Answer first: