_Que faire?_ Should I consult Salambo, the well-known Oriental lady in Bond Street, as to the future? Should I go to Exeter Hall and observe the Ranter on his native heath? Should I go to St. James Hall and revel in Alice Gome's superb voice? I did none of these things; I took Thérèse with me and drove to that popular place of amusement, the Aquarium, as I had never been there, and I wanted to see the fishes. Alas! How sadly we English take our pleasures! The only fish at the Aquarium are some monsters of _papier maché_ and a lonely _piscis vulgaris_ condemned to solitary confinement in a slimy tank. Thérèse thought she would like to see the sword-swallowers, so I took seats, and while we waited, such a funny man told us he would impersonate celebrities in quick change. He did a lot of men with beards and long hair, and held up bits of cardboard to let us know who they were, and he called himself Meyerbeer and Rossini, and, as Thérèse said, without the cardboard you wouldn't have known which was which. Then he did Lord Roberts and Baden-Powell and the Prince of Wales; and when I saw him put on his Lord Roberts' wig and jerk the antimacassar off an arm-chair, I knew that he would impersonate the Queen. And he did, and you can have no idea how grotesque it was, and the curtain dropped and nobody applauded. The sword-swallower did some amazing things, and smacked his lips, as if the swords tasted nice. His wife swallowed an electric light, and then he told us of a trick he could do which no one had ever done before in England, namely, to swallow a sword and hang weights on to the hilt, but he didn't do it, as he said he had a sore throat. I wouldn't wait for the lady who dives from a trapeze into a tank, or drop pennies into slots, or have my photo taken while I waited, though I let Thérèse have six shots at a Boer behind a kopje in the shooting gallery, but she nearly killed the attendant after the third shot. {_A Rustic Footman_}