An author, during his early career, is compelled to become acquainted with the "ins and outs" and "ways and means" of London lodging-houses; and as his occupation keeps him more within doors than those who hold situations, or are otherwise engaged, he is, to use a more expressive than elegant phrase, "Up to their moves and down to their dodges." We have in our day known more than one gentleman who kept his own gridiron, and brought home his rump-steak--taught by experience that half a pound of his own cooking was equal to a pound after it had been entrusted to the Cinderella or the Cerberus of the kitchen. We have known whisky in such places (which overnight was above proof) become so weak in a single day during our absence, as never to require water; and have seen a shoulder of lamb, which, after our frugal dinner, was carried away with a gap in it scarcely wide enough to admit of our two fingers, return at supper-time with a hole in the middle big enough to shake hands through, without touching any thing on either side except the knuckle, or the edge of the bare blade-bone. It was wonderful how often the cat got to our meat, and what trouble our landlady had been at, according to her account, to cut off the portions puss had mangled, before it was again fit to appear on the table. Cruel woman! she was always beating the cat whenever we had a cold joint. As for our tea-caddy, we tried half-a-dozen various kinds of locks; but they were picked with far more ease than the clever American managed to pick Chubb's patent. When we did at last get an unpickable lock, caddy and tea went altogether, and Cinderella said her mistress had had a strange sweep, and that sweeps were always sure to carry something or another away in the soot. The next day we found a sixpenny tin tea-caddy in our cupboard, so took the hint, and never sent out for more than two ounces at a time; and the landlady seemed to settle down satisfied with little more than half of it, so we had it "fresh and fresh" every day. We found that a twopenny French roll went as far as a half-quartern loaf, as we were never allowed to look a second time upon the remains of either. They charged us for cream and gave us milk-and-water; but perhaps this was done out of a tender regard for our health. How broth was made in these old model lodging-houses, we never could clearly comprehend; but the landlady had an herbalist book, and we believe made out her bill from the index, beginning at agrimony and ending at yarrow-root. A bottle of wine when decanted in the kitchen cost about eighteenpence a glass; walnuts, a penny each; filberts came up so ripe that we found one in a cluster where four or five had originally nestled together; lobsters always lost their claws down-stairs, and very often came up with one side of the shell empty. Bottled stout was always going off in the cellar, and they shewed us the corks which had been blown out--indeed in these matters they were rather particular.