“He’s somebody,” said the commercial traveller, significantly. “So I should think,” returned the landlord, quietly. “He’s a high fellow,” added the bagman, mysteriously. “I shouldn’t wonder,” said the landlord, tranquilly. “Why, bless your heart, man alive!” broke out, impatiently, his interlocutor, “can’t you guess who he is? He’s Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. I have seen his Royal Highness a hundred times, and know him by sight as well as I do you.” The next forenoon, when the sable horseman arrived, he found a roll of crimson baize laid down from the pales before the tavern to the doorway, which was lined by American aloes in tubs. The staircase was freshly carpeted; in the stranger’s customary place was a table covered with a crimson cloth, backed by a crimson chair with gilt legs. The landlady, her daughter, and the barmaid, were all in holiday attire, and when the unknown rang the bell, the landlord himself, in a blue coat and brass buttons, and his hair newly powdered, brought him the beer in a silver tankard, and a wax candle at which to light his pipe. The black horseman said nothing, drank his ale, and smoked his tobacco, paid his reckoning, made his way downstairs amidst a profusion of bows and curtsies, mounted his horse, and—never came again. So runs the legend. The commercial traveller may have been wrong in his assertion, or may have been hoaxing the landlord; but I incline to the belief that this was really Prince Leopold. Why not? The incident is trifling enough; yet there is something touching in the picture of the good-natured young German brooding over his bereavement, yet consoling himself in the simple German fashion, over his pipe and beer. * * * * * Friend of mine, if you have the slightest hope or thought that whither I am now taking thee is one of the gay and merry scenes of London night-life, prithee dismiss the thought, for thou art in error. Prithee pull up the collar of thy coat, stiffen thy neckcloth as much as possible, take that wicked cigar from thy mouth, cast down thine eyes, and assume a decorum, if thou have it not. We are going to Exeter Hall. Don’t be alarmed: this is not the month of May or the season for meetings in aid of missions to the Quashiboos, the Rumbatumbas, or the Oolalooloo cannibals. We are not going to hear John B. Gough lecture on temperance. We are going to hear an oratorio, conducted by Mr. Costa—an oratorio in which Mr. Sims Reeves, Mr. Weiss, Miss Dolby, and Madame Clara Novello, are to sing—and to listen to a band and chorus brought to a degree of perfection which only the genius of such a conductor could insure, or the gigantic resources of the Sacred Harmonic Society command.