I confess, when I heard one of the Diners-out asking for Champagne, and saw his glass filled with Harvey's Sauce and water, with the announcement that it was _Dry Monopole Cuvée Réservée_, I felt some momentary misgivings, but they were speedily put to flight on my noticing the evident gusto with which he emptied his glass, at the same time pronouncing it to be "a very fine wine," which he assigned to the vintage of '76. I own too I felt a little nervous when the Professorial Butler, I think not without a sly twinkle in his eye, gave all the party a _liqueur_ of petroleum for Green Chartreuse, but they certainly seemed to find it all right, and so my apprehensions disappeared. Thus my "Little Dinner" came at length to a conclusion. That it was an undoubted success, from a financial point of view, there can be no sort of doubt, for fourpence more than covered the cost of the materials, to which, adding the Professorial Butler's fee of two shillings and sixpence, brings the whole cost of the entertainment up to eightpence-halfpenny a head. It is true I have not heard whether any of my guests have suffered any ill-effects from partaking of my hospitality, but I suppose if any of them had died or been seized with violent symptoms, the fact would have been notified to me. So, on the whole, I may congratulate myself. I certainly could not afford to entertain largely in any other fashion, but, with the aid of the Professorial Butler, I am already contemplating giving a series of nice "Little Dinners," and even on a more extended scale. Indeed, with the assistance of Hypnotism, it is possible, at a trifling cost, to see one's friends. And in the general interests of Society, I mean to do it. * * * * * [Illustration: FANCY PORTRAIT. (_After reading the Correspondence on Fruit and Birds in the "Morning Post."_) THE BRIGAND BULLFINCH.] * * * * * BULLYING POOR "BULLY."