Nothing but Champagne could have enabled us to keep up the evening so well. We were getting weary before supper—but we have had some wine, have dug the spur into our sides, and on we go again. At length, even the bottle stimulates our worn-out company no more; and then we separate. Good-night, dear sir; we have spent a Very Pleasant Evening under your roof. To-morrow, when you depart from a late breakfast, having seen your daughter’s face, and her boiled-mackerel eye, knowing that your wife is bilious, and that your son has just gone out for soda-water, you will feel yourself to be a Briton who has done his duty, a man who has paid something on account of his great debt to civilized society. IV. The Light Nuisance. Tieck tells us, in his “History of the Schildbürger,” that the town council of that spirited community was very wise. It had been noticed that many worthy aldermen and common-councilors were in the habit of looking out of window when they ought to be attending to their duties. A vote was therefore, on one occasion, passed by a large majority, to this effect, namely—Whereas the windows of the Town-hall are a great impediment to the dispatch of public business, it is ordered that before the next day of meeting they be all bricked up. When the next day of meeting came, the worthy representatives of Schildbürg were surprised to find themselves assembling in the dark. Presently, accepting the unlooked-for fact, they settled down into an edifying discussion of the question, whether darkness was not more convenient for their purposes than daylight. Had you and I been there, my friend, our votes in the division would have been, like the vote in our own House of Commons a few days ago, for keeping out the Light Nuisance as much as possible. Darkness is better than daylight, certainly.