It is the privilege of the unique Haymarket to be like its week-night self on Sunday; but in the six mundane days to be a totally different Haymarket from the street which it becomes immediately after midnight. True, by daylight, and during the early part of the evening, it is that which it will remain all night: a broad thoroughfare inclining slightly downhill northward; a theatre on its eastern, a colonnaded opera-house on its western side; a thoroughfare containing a sufficiency of shops for the sale of general merchandise, but, predominating above these, a crowd of hotels, _restaurants_, cigar-divans, coffee-houses, and establishments for the sale of lobsters, oysters, and pickled salmon, according to the seasons in which those dainties are considered most fit to be enjoyed. But it is not the same—no, not at all the same—Haymarket to which it will suddenly turn, when the clock of St. Martin’s church shall proclaim the hour of midnight. The change, at first imperceptible, is yet in a moment more immense. As though Harlequin had smitten the houses—and the people also—with his wand, the whole Haymarket wakes, lights, rises up with a roar, a rattle, and a shriek quite pantomimic, if not supernatural. The latter image would, I think, be the most _vrai semblant_. “Hey for fun!” “How are you to-morrow?” and “How are you?” are the cries and the pass-words. The painted Clown (in mosaic jewellery, and all-round collar, an astonishing cravat, and a variegated shirt) grins his grin and tumbles on the pavement. He is not above stealing an occasional sausage, bonneting a policeman, overturning an image-boy’s stock in trade, or throwing the contents of a fishwoman’s basket about. Harlequin in a mask and patchwork-suit is here, there, and everywhere, conjuring money out of people’s pockets, and perpetually pursued by a vindictive Sprite, habited in the garb of a police constable. The lean and slippered Pantaloon hobbles over the flags, and grimaces, with his wicked old countenance, beneath the gas-lamps. And Columbine, _Wallah billah!_ Columbine in muslins, spangles, and artificial flowers, is here, there, and everywhere, too, and dances her miserable jigs to the sorry music of the fife, viol, and tabor, squeaking, scraping, and thumping at the gin-shop by the corner of the court.