the appearance of having some two or three hundred years ago served for a barracks. 'By appointment?' inquired a human thing dressed, as he emerged from behind a green screen situated at one corner. He bowed, and I bowed, until he was satisfied I was somebody, 'Who would you see?' he reiterates, adding another bow. "'Well!' returned I, 'reckon how I'll think about that.' Then the fellow crossed three or four times my track, as much as to say--Stranger! you don't go in there. Presently a batch of well-to-do individuals came snickering out of a closet, and eyed me very suspiciously; at which I summoned all my brass, and stood fronting them like a staring machine. 'You must say who you want to see!' interposes the man I first confronted. "I here took leisurely out my card, and said 'I would like to see the Duke of Newcastle, who temporarily tied up in this establishment.' He viewed my card with a serious hesitation; at which I turned round, and told him I would not trouble him, but take it myself, had he had any special objection to going a-head. They, the people, said the Duke, did all he could with what he had to do with. If it were not possible to see the Duke, I would like a peep at my venerable aunt Aberdeen, who was about as well qualified to sway the destinies of discontented England as a virgin pumpkin; and together with my ever amiable Lord Clarendon, would set a world at war good-naturedly. These very high functionaries, Mr. Smooth was informed, could not at present be seen by common people, inasmuch as they were contemplating the problem:--'I don't know what to do!' Nicholas's appetite for Turkey breakfasts had made work too profound for the brains of Downing Street. 'Don't seem a subject of this atmosphere,' said the stupid, significantly canting his head, and giving a queer look out of the corner of his right eye. 'You fellows don't seem to know me,' I interpolated, 'Citizen Smooth--they call me Solomon Smooth, Esq., that is my name.' A door now opened near where I was standing, and in I walked--right among the Dukes and dough-heads. It only wanted a bold push, in the right go-ahead sort of way, to make myself respected. Dukes were not only flesh and blood, but owed much of their importance to the ignorance of the people they aspired to frown upon. Dukes, Earls, and Lords, were, at this moment, playing at very un-English games for England. They affected to believe it right that the loyal people (I mean the simple and vulgar, who have hitherto proved mean the simple and vulgar) who have hitherto proved true to their noble traditions, should remain ignorant of the game played at their expense. This, Mr. Smooth thought too bad; however, his friend Urquhart was devising a scheme for remedying the evil, which, did he not himself fall into evil, might do great good to the nation in general. But Urquhart was so modest that he never accused Lord Palmerston of anything worse than bringing about the potato rot in Ireland.