the Haunt? It’s Wednesday night, you know, when all the boys go.” We tap at a door in an old, old street in Soho: an old maid with a kind, comical face opens the door, and nods friendly, and says, “How do, sir? ain’t seen you this ever so long. How do, Mr. Noocom?” “Who’s here?” “Most everybody’s here.” We pass by a little snug bar, in which a trim elderly lady is seated by a great fire, on which boils an enormous kettle; while two gentlemen are attacking a cold saddle of mutton and West India pickles: hard by Mrs. Nokes the landlady’s elbow—with mutual bows—we recognise Hickson, the sculptor, and Morgan, the intrepid Irish chieftain, chief of the reporters of the _Morning Press_ newspaper. We pass through a passage into a back room, and are received with a roar of welcome from a crowd of men, almost invisible in the smoke. “I am right glad to see thee, boy!” cries a cheery voice (that will never troll a chorus more). “We spake anon of thy misfortune, gentle youth! and that thy warriors of Assaye have charged the Academy in vain. Mayhap thou frightenedst the courtly school with barbarous visages of grisly war.—Pendennis, thou dost wear a thirsty look! Resplendent swell! untwine thy choker white, and I will either stand a glass of grog, or thou shalt pay the like for me, my lad, and tell us of the fashionable world.” Thus spake the brave old Tom Sarjent,—also one of the Press, one of the old boys: a good old scholar with a good old library of books, who had taken his seat any time these forty years by the chimney-fire in this old Haunt: where painters, sculptors, men of letters, actors, used to congregate, passing pleasant hours in rough kindly communion, and many a day seeing the sunrise lighting the rosy street ere they parted, and Betsy put the useless lamp out and closed the hospitable gates of the Haunt.