And here let me pause for a minute to remark upon the shameful nuisance that those barracks in Albany Street are to all persons living in that otherwise quiet and pretty neighbourhood--for I’m sure there’s not a person whose house is within half-a-mile of the dreadful place that isn’t wherrited out of their lives by them. Upon my word, the Life Guardsmen there are so frightfully handsome, that they ought not to be allowed by Government to wander at large in those fascinating red jackets, and with those large jet-black mustachios of theirs, sticking out on each side of their face, just like two sticks of Spanish liquorice--nor be permitted to go about as they do, breaking, or at least cracking, the hearts of all the poor servant-girls in the neighbourhood, as if they were so much crockery. And what on earth the hearts of the good-looking wretches themselves can be made of is more than I can say; for either they must be as impenetrable to Cupid’s arrows as bags of sand, or I’m sure else they must be as full of holes as a rushlight-shade. I don’t know what the regiment may cost the nation every year, (but of course it’s no trifling sum, and what they do for it except make love to the maids, I can’t see)--but this I do know for a positive fact, that the expense the Life Guardsmen are to the respectable inhabitants of Albany Street and its neighbourhood is actually frightful; for they seem to be of opinion that love cannot live on air, and consequently always begin by paying their addresses to the cooks, and if the larder be good, I will do them the justice to say, that their constancy is wonderful; and really the sum they cost poor Albany Street and its surrounding districts in the matter of cold meat alone is really so dreadful, that I really do think if a petition were got up, and the case properly represented to Government, the Paymaster of the Forces could not refuse to make them a large allowance every year for the excellent rations served out to the soldiers every day by the maids. Really the amiable fellows’ appetites seem to be as large as their hearts--and _they_ are as big as the Waterloo omnibuses, Heaven knows, and will carry fourteen inside with perfect ease and comfort any day. Talk about locusts in the land--I’d back a regiment of Life Guardsmen for eating a respectable district out of house and home in half the time, for positively the fine-looking vagabonds seem to have nothing else to do but to walk about Albany Street, looking down every area like so many dealers in hare and rabbit skins, crying out--“Any affection or cold meat this morning, cook?” I don’t know if any of my courteous readers have ever been in Albany Street when the bugle is sounded for the fellows to return to their barracks, but upon my word the scene is really heartbreaking to housekeepers, for there isn’t an area down the whole street but from which you will see a Life Guardsman, with his mouth full, ascending the steps, and hurrying off to his