I have said that there are reasons why an intending visitor might, perchance, fail to penetrate as far as this den of books and bric-a-brac, and I might allege a considerable number, but they may all be summed up in the one deplorable fact that there are but twenty-four hours to the day, and seven days to the week. Time is precious to me, and leisure is a thing unknown. If, however, the said visitor is of congenial tastes, has gained admittance, and finds me less busy than usual, he will, perhaps, be let into the secret of certain hidden treasures, the existence of which is unsuspected by the casual caller. For dearer to me than all the rest of my curios are my Egyptian antiquities; and of these, strange to say, though none of them are in sight, I have enough to stock a modest little museum. Stowed away in all kinds of nooks and corners, in upstairs cupboards, in boxes, drawers, and cases innumerable, behind books, and invading the sanctity of glass closets and wardrobes, are hundreds, nay, thousands, of those fascinating objects in bronze and glazed ware, in carved wood and ivory, in glass, and pottery, and sculptured stone, which are the delight of archaeologists and collectors. Here, for instance, behind the "_Revue Archeologique_" packed side by side as closely as figs in a box, are all the gods of Egypt,--fantastic little porcelain figures plumed and horned, bird-headed, animal-headed, and the like. Their reign, it is true, may be over in the Valley of the Nile, but in me they still have a fervent adorer. Were I inclined to worship them with due antique ceremonial, there are two libation tables in one of the attics ready to my hand, carved with semblances of sacrificial meats and drinks; or here, in a tin box behind the "_Retrospective Review_," are specimens of actual food offerings deposited three thousand years ago in various tombs at Thebes--shrivelled dates, lentils, nuts, and even a slice of bread. Rings, necklaces, bracelets, earrings, amulets, mirrors, and toilet objects, once the delight of dusky beauties long since embalmed and forgotten; funerary statuettes, scarabs, rolls of mummy cloth, and the like are laid by "in a sacred gloom" from which they are rarely, if ever, brought forth into the light of day. And there are stranger things than these,--fragments of spiced and bituminized humanity to be shown to visitors who are not nervous, nor given to midnight terrors. Here is a baby's foot (some mother cried over it once) in the Japanese cabinet in the ante-room. There are three mummied hands behind "_Allibone's Dictionary of English Authors_," in the library. There are two arms with hands complete--the one almost black, the other singularly fair,--in a drawer in my dressing-room; and grimmest of all, I have the heads of two ancient Egyptians in a wardrobe in my bedroom, who, perhaps, talk to each other in the watches of the night, when I am sound asleep. As, however, I am not writing a catalogue of