The queen's birthday proved to be an unfortunate day for Rollo, for he met with quite a serious misfortune in the evening while he and Mr. George were out looking at the illuminations. The case was this:-- Rollo had formed a plan for going with Mr. George in the evening to the hotel where his father and mother were lodging, to get Jennie to go out with them to see the illuminations. They had learned from their landlady that the best place to see them was along a certain street called Pall Mall, where there were a great many club houses and other public buildings, which were usually illuminated in a very brilliant manner.[F] [F] These club houses are very large and splendid mansions belonging to associations of gentlemen called _clubs_. Some of the clubs contain more than a thousand members. The houses are fitted up in the most luxurious manner, with reading rooms, libraries, dining rooms, apartments for conversation, and for all sorts of games, and every thing else requisite to make them agreeable places of resort for the members. The annual expenditure in many of them is from thirty to fifty thousand dollars. It was after eight o'clock when Mr. George and Rollo went out; and as soon as they came into the street at Trafalgar Square, they saw all around them the indications of an extraordinary and general excitement. The streets were full of people; and in every direction, and at different distances from them, they could see lights gleaming in the air, over the roofs of the houses, or shining brightly upon the heads of the crowd in the street below, in some open space, or at some prominent and conspicuous corner. The current seemed to be setting to the west, towards the region of the club houses and palaces. The lights were more brilliant, too, in that direction. So Rollo, taking hold of his uncle's hand and hurrying him along, said,-- "Come, uncle George! This is the way! They are all lighted up! See!" For a moment Rollo forgot his cousin Jennie; though the direction in which he was going led, in fact, towards the hotel where she was. The sidewalk soon became so full that it was impossible to go on any faster than the crowd itself was advancing; and at length, when Mr. George and Rollo got fairly into Pall Mall, and were in the midst of a great blaze of illuminations, which were shining with intense splendor all around them, they were for a moment, in passing round a corner, completely wedged up by the crowd, so that they could scarcely move hand or foot. In this jam Rollo felt a pressure upon his side near the region of his pocket, which reminded him of his purse; and it immediately occurred to him that it was not quite safe to have money about his person in such a crowd, and that it would be better to give it to his uncle George to keep for him until he should get home. So he put his hand into his pantaloons pocket to take out his purse; but, to his great dismay, he found that it was gone.