At the opposite end of the room three large volumes that look like picture books lie on a sideboard; their green watered-silk quarto covers and gilt backs are tempting, and I will make an effort to gain possession of them. Softly, softly: there, I have thrown down a silver fruit knife and a piece of orange peel! He stirs! I must pause awhile or he will certainly awake. Hem! the worthy gentleman settles down to his former tranquillity; the incipient frown which contracted his forehead is past away; and the rest of a good conscience, the calm of a mental and corporeal healthiness, sleeps there again. With zephyr-step and bosomed breath I glide onward to the sideboard, I seize my prize, and being once more safely established in my chair I open the volumes to see if the profit be equivalent to the pains. Eureka! Eureka! ‘Tree’s Portrait Gallery of the Aristocracy of Africa’! Why, here is cent. per cent. indeed! The very thing; the beau-ideal of provision for an after-dinner’s amusement! However languid and unfitted for exertion, the veriest gourmand could not turn with disgust from such placid entertainment as is here prepared for him; the sleepiest eye might wander unwearied over the silent visions that here follow each other in a succession so dreamy and voiceless. I am no gourmand after dinner; I am as active as before; but just now the pleasure of hanging over forms that speak without sound, of gazing into motionless eyes that search your very heart, is more attractive to me than sprightlier employments. The second volume is nearest to my hand, and I will raise first from the shadow of gossamer paper, waving as I turn it like a web of woven air, the spirit whosoever it be, male or female, crowned or coroneted, that animates its frontispiece.