Dear friends and readers, we are approaching the sere and yellow leaf of our peregrinations “round the clock.” As the year wanes, as golden August points to the culminating glories of the year, but with oft-times a dark and impetuous storm presaging the evil days of winter that are to come, so I feel, hour after hour, that our (to me) pleasant intercommunications are destined to cease. You have been very forbearing with me, have suppressed a justifiable petulance at my short-comings, my digressions, my wayward fancies and prejudices, because you know (I hope and trust) that I am always your faithful servant and willing scribe, that (errors excepted, as the lawyers say) I have but one aim and end in these papers—to tell you the truth about London, its life and manners; to describe what I have seen, to tell you what I know; and to place before you, very timidly and under all correction, certain things which, in my opinion, it behoves you, and all who have a faith in the better part of humanity, to think about. Indeed, it is a very great privilege for a writer to be placed face to face with a hundred thousand critics every week, in lieu of half a hundred every half-year or so. He is flouted, and jeered, and scouted, and scolded, and remonstrated with, every time the penny post comes in; but he makes friends every week. He knows that his words are winged; he knows that he appeals to men who will understand his views, and to women who will sympathise with him; and though he may be as a pedlar, carrying about petty wares—ribbons, and tags, and small jewellery, and soap, and sweetstuff—he is vain enough to imagine that he can carry cheerfulness and content into many households; and that in speaking our common language of hopes and fears, likes and dislikes, he does not belie his cognomen of a “Welcome Guest.” If he—if I—thought otherwise, I would tear this sheet, sell my reversion, buy an annuity of £20 a year, and join the convent of La Trappe, to wear a cowl, sing matins and complins, eat black radishes, and dig my own grave, to-morrow. Seven o’clock post meridian has brought us at least the artificial abnegation of daylight, and has subjected us to the _régime_ of gaslight. You had a twinkle of that unwholesome vapour, under the head of public dinners; but henceforth Sol will shine no longer on our labours. It is seven o’clock in the evening, and we are going to the play.