So matters stood, but the cutting off of the food supply, thirty shillings being charged at a West-End Club for a plate of indifferent tinned-rabbit, soon brought matters to a crisis. The Cabinet that at the first approach of the enemy, had instantly retired to the Island of Lewis, came cautiously up to town and opening negotiations for peace with the French Government, finally signed the Tottenham Court Road treaty, and provided for the evacuation of the country by the invader. The terms were stringent and somewhat severe. In addition to agreeing to the cession of India, Australia, the Cape, Canada and all her Mediterranean possessions, together with the division of her Fleet among the Navies of Europe, England undertook to pay an indemnity in ready money at the Bank of England of five-hundred millions sterling. * * * As a cordon of French troops was keeping back the sullen crowd that thronged the space in front of the Royal Exchange and watched the waggons heavily laden with the bullion that was about to be transferred to the South-Eastern Railway for transmission to France, a tall, elastic figure wearing a high shirt-collar, pushed eagerly up the steps of the Mansion House, and gazed reflectively at the scene that was being enacted below. Presently some one touched it. It turned. "Ha! Sir EDWARD," was the bright recognition, "who would ever have thought of meeting you again, and who would ever have conceived," the cheery voice continued, "that our little compact should have ended in this!" The speaker pointed with a significant smile to the waggons of bullion lumbering beneath. "Well," responded the other with a suggestive dryness, "my support got you into power at any rate!" A marvellous brightness overspread the features of his interlocutor. "Yes, it did," he replied, "and though I am quite confident that posterity will say it was worth the price, I see," he added airily, waving his hand in the direction of the Bank, "that at the present moment it is apparently being _paid in full_!" * * * * * [Illustration: REMARKS ONE WOULD RATHER HAVE LEFT UNANSWERED. "WELL, GOOD-BYE, DEAR MRS. JONES. I'M AFRAID I'VE PUT YOU OUT BY CALLING AT THIS UNEARTHLY HOUR." "OH, I HOPE I DIDN'T SHOW IT!"] * * * * * SALUBRITIES ABROAD.