"Yes: the gaiety of Paris is really a delusion. How poor its shops--how paltry its equipages--how listless its crowds--compared with those of London! If it was only for the pain in walking their accursed stones, sloping down to a river in the middle of the street--all sense of idle enjoyment would be spoilt. But in London--'the hum, the stir, the din of men'--the activity and flush of life everywhere--the brilliant shops--the various equipages--the signs of luxury, wealth, restlessness, that meet you on all sides--give a much more healthful and vigorous bound to the spirits, than the indolent loungers of the Tuileries, spelling a thrice-read French paper which contains nothing, or sitting on chairs by the hour together, unwilling to stir because they have paid a penny for the seat--ever enjoy. O! if London would seem gay after Paris, how much more so after a visit to the interior of the Earth. And what is the news, my Asmodeus?" "The Theatres have re-opened. Apropos of them--I will tell you a fine instance of the futility of human ambition. Mr. Monck Mason took the King's Theatre, saith report--(which is the creed of devils)--in order to bring out an opera of his own, which Mr. Laporte, with a very uncourteous discretion, had thought fit to refuse. The season passes--and Mr. Monck Mason has ruined himself without being able to bring out his opera after all! What a type of speculation. A speculator is one who puts a needle in a hay-stack, and then burns all his hay without finding the needle. It is hard to pay too dear for one's whistle--but still more hard if one never plays a tune on the whistle one pays for. Still the world has lost a grand pleasure in not seeing damned an Opera written by the Manager of the Opera-house,--it would have been such a consolation to all the rejected operatives,--it would have been the prettiest hardship entailed on a great man ever since the time of that speaker who was forced himself to put the question whether he had been guilty of bribery, and should be expelled the House, and had the pleasure of hearing the Ayes predominate. _Je me mête_ with the affairs of the Theatre--they are in my diabolic province, you know. But if the stage be the fosterer of vice, as you know it is said, vice just at this moment in England has very unattractive colours." "Ah, wait till we break the monopoly. But even now have we not the 'Hunchback?'