Now is the matutinal occupation of the milkwoman nearly gone; her last cries of “Milk, ho!” die away in faint echoes, and she might reasonably be supposed to enjoy a holiday till the afternoon’s milk for tea were required; but not so. To distant dairies she hies, and to all appearances occupies herself in scrubbing her milk pails till three o’clock. I have a great affection (platonic) for milkwomen. I should like to go down to Wales and see them when they are at home. What clean white cotton stockings they wear, on—no, not their legs—on the posts which support their robust torsos! How strong they are! There are many I should be happy to back, and for no inconsiderable trifle either, to thrash Ben Gaunt. Did you ever know any one who courted a milkwoman? Was there ever a milkwoman married, besides Madam Vestris, in the “Wonderful Woman?” Yes; I love them—their burly forms; their mahogany faces, handsomely veneered by wind and weather; their coarse straw bonnets flattened at the top; their manly lace-up boots, and those wonderful mantles on their shoulders, which are neither shawl, tippet, cape nor scarf, but a compound of all, and are of equally puzzling colour and patterns. The postman is breakfasting in the interval between the eight and the ten o’clock delivery. Does he take his scarlet tunic off when he breakfasts? Does he beguile the short hour of refreshment by reading, between snaps of bread and butter and gulps of coffee, short extracts from “A Double Knock at the Postman’s Conscience,” by the Reverend Mr. Davis, Ordinary of Newgate? For if the postman reads not during breakfast-time, I am wholly at a loss to know, dog-tired as he must be when he comes home from his rounds at night, when he can find time for pursuing his literary studies. By the way, where does the postman lodge? I have occupied apartments in the same house with a policeman; I was once aware of the private residence of a man who served writs; and I have taken tea in the parlour of the Pandean pipes to a Punch-and-Judy; but I never knew personally the abode of a postman. Mr. Sculthorpe and Mr. Peacock know them but too frequently, to the postman’s cost. Nine o’clock, and the _grande armée_ of “musicianers” debouches from Spitalfields, and Leather Lane, Holborn, and far-off Clerkenwell, and, in compact columns, move westward. Nine o’clock, and the sonorous cry of “Old clo’!” is heard in sequestered streets chiefly inhabited by bachelors. Nine o’clock, and another _grande armée_ veers through Temple Bar, charges down Holborn Hill, escalades Finsbury, captures Cornhill by a dexterous flank movement, and sits down and invests the Bank of England in regular form. This is London going to business in the city. [Illustration: NINE O’CLOCK A.M.: OMNIBUSES AT THE BANK.] [Illustration: NINE O’CLOCK A.M.: PENNY STEAMBOATS ALONGSIDE THE PIER AT LONDON BRIDGE.]