"Let him sacrifice us if He will," said he who had before spoken. "The true man is but a cannon-shot, rejoicing most of all when the Divine Artillerist shall send him irresistible and flaming against some foeman of the race risen from Pandemonium. Man--the true man--is like the Parthian's arrow, kindling into fiery flames as it leaves the bow. Man--the true man--is the Spirit-sword, but the sword-arm is moved by the heart of the Almighty." Ah Piccadilly! hallowed recollections may attach to those stones worn by the feet of the busy idiots in this vast asylum, for one sane man has trodden them, and I listened to the words of wisdom as they dropped from the lips of one so obscure that his name is still unknown in the land, but I doubted not who at that moment was the greatest man in Piccadilly. [Illustration] CONCLUSION. MORAL. PICCADILLY, _July 15_. It will be seen by the date at which I am writing this, that I have been compelled to increase the pace I have been keeping up during the season. The fact is, my episode, like those of my neighbours, seems likely to be prematurely concluded by the course of political events, which will no doubt act prejudicially this year upon the happiness of many interesting members of society. Towards the close of the London season it is only natural that everything should culminate; but generally the actors in the scenes of real life so calculate that the curtain falls just at the right moment; or rather, that they shall be doing just the right thing when the curtain falls. The artists insensibly group themselves for the _grand tableau_. All over the stage episodes are occurring, any one of which taken separately would make a good sensation finale. There are wily mothers and desperate daughters throwing with unerring aim their nets over youths who have become reckless or imbecile. And there are unprincipled poachers setting snares for the pretty game they hope to destroy. Look at the poor victims, both male and female, trying to get disentangled. What a rush, and shuffle, and conflict of feelings and affections it is! The hearts that for the first time feel they have been touched as the moment of separation draws near; the "histories" which in all future time will form the most marked page in his or her life, and which have begun and ended in the season; the intimacies that have been formed, and which are to last for ever; those that have been broken; the fatal friendships which have been cemented this year, and the disastrous results of which, suspected on neither side, we shall read of in the newspapers years to come. What a curious picture would be the mind of London society if we could photograph it in February, and how strangely different would it be from a photograph of the same subject taken in July, more especially when, as now, the elections throw everything into confusion; and little Haultort gets so bewildered, that he encloses, by