public companies, to whom it is needless more particularly to allude. Fortunes in London are made by trifles. I knew a man who kept a knacker’s yard, who lived out of town in a villa of exquisite beauty, and who drove horses which a prince or an American millionaire would have envied. Out of the profits of his vegetable pills, Morrison bought himself a nice estate. Mrs. Holloway used to be seen riding in one of the handsomest carriages to be met with in the Strand, and the princely liberality of Mr. Holloway astonished all England a little while since; and as to the keepers of dining-rooms and City taverns, how well they live, and in what good style, most of us know well. Before suburban railways had become developed, in the City was to be seen more than one proprietor of a dining-room, who drove daily a handsome mail phaeton and pair to town in the morning to do his business, and back at night. Thackeray had a tale, if not founded on fact, at any rate not improbable, of a gentleman who married a young lady, drove a swell cab, and lived altogether in great style. The gentleman was dumb as to his daily occupation. He would not impart even the secret to his wife. Even the prying mother-in-law was unable to solve the mystery. All that she knew was, what everyone else knew, that her son-in-law went out in his cab, with his tiger mounted behind, in the morning, and returned home in the same style at night. At length, one day, the wife, going with her dear mamma into the City shopping, recognised her lord and master in the person of a street-sweeper, clothed in rags, and covered with dirt. The discovery was too much for him. He was never heard of more.