I HUMBLY desire, dear readers, to please you if I can, and therefore hasten to gratify an aspiration which lurks in all novel-readers' hearts to "get into the thick of the business at once." So come with me and be summarily introduced to one or two principal personages of this little drama. Let us take them unawares, let us surprise them while they sit at meat,-eating, drinking, and (some of them, at least) making merry, on the margin of the Lake of Como, in one of the pleasantest hotels in Europe, the "Bellevue," at Cadenabbia. And do thou, old Time, turn back in thy flight a few short years, and suffer us to enter the table d'hôte room of the hotel in question, on the bright evening of an early summer day in 187-.

The banquet is spread. The guests are assembled or assembling. They are of many nationalities, of diverse ranks, of most ages; each of the three sexes is represented, for more than one palpable curate bows his meek head over the flesh

VOL. CXXII.-NO. DCCXLI.

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pot. You find the noise a little trying at first, don't you? The crockery does seem to be possessed with devils, and every glass in the room must have St. Vitus's dance. Every one seems to be impatient at first hungry, angry, vociferous. What tempers these waiters must have! Outside the window a stringband is playing a selection from the 'Barbiere.' Could anything be more appropriate? "Figaro quà, Figaro là!" shrieks the band. "Kellner!" "Garçon !" "Cameriere!" "Waiter!" shout the guests; and through all the crush and the bustle these admirable men glide about here, there, everywhere, breathless and perspiring, but full of polyglot politeness and attention. The only calm, still, cool-looking object in the room is that tremendous headwaiter in the buff waistcoat, standing near the door, in Jove-like serenity. The guests, as they enter, pause before him to ask where they may place themselves. In that august presence they appear to peak and dwindle. He is too great to speak,

A

but waves them off to their destinations, exact and unerring as omniscience. His whole air seems to say-"A good man struggling with difficulties may be a sight for the gods; but how much grander this, the spectacle of a great man overcoming every difficulty without a struggle, with a bosom as unruffled as the buff garment which envelops it!" The diapason of discord has achieved itself in the sudden collapse of that mottle-faced waiter, involving in his ruin thirteen plates, a dish of potatoes, and a bottle of Medoc; and now that the yells of yonder German have caused the last window in the room to be closed, things begin to settle down into a little more quiescence. Come, then, and thread with me the hall. Don't look at that indigestive spinster unless you wish to be petrified. Don't waste a thought upon that glorious-looking old man with the dome-like head and long white moustache. He is not a very distinguished general of division. He is a City man-probably a stockbroker -and his name is, conceivably, Crump. Never mind the brunette -beautiful as a star, but nothing to us. Come on. Eat with their knives? Of course they do. The only Russian princess whose confidence I have enjoyed, ate with her knife-quite a trifle when you're accustomed to it. You see that old lady dwelling in the fool's paradise of an auburn" front" and immense gutta-percha teeth? Well, next her are two men. Voilà notre affaire. These are my hero Cosmo Glencairn, and his friend Tom Wyedale. Yes, the fair one is Cosmo. Why not? Heroes ought to be dark? I deny it not English heroes. They ought to be buff men, with blue eyes, like the Vikings. Well, there they are. Draw near to them, and listen to them, and look out for new arrivals. And

now I leave you to find your way through the labyrinth of this tale, from which the gods give you and me a safe and happy deliverance.

"The menagerie seems to be fuller than usual to-night, Cosmo," said Tom; "the roaring is louder, and there seem to be several new varieties. I see a new skunk, and a chimpanzee, and a sun-fish, and a hippopotamus."

ed?"

And all that being interpret

"And all that being interpreted means that we have a considerable increase in the number of our codiners, and that the new-comers are rather a shady lot to look at."

"Not very distinguished-looking, certainly. What is the meaning of it, I wonder? It isn't near the tourists' season, and yet many of the new arrivals look like the ideal tourist-not the least like returning swallows from the Riviera or Rome."

"Not a bit of it; but, perhaps, something has been taking place in England-the Whitsuntide holidays or something."

"You pagan! we are still a fortnight from Whitsunday."

"Are we? I apologise. One forgets everything in this Sleepy Hollow. But, Whitsunday or not, if Mr. Cook had shot a whole caravan into the district, we couldn't be richer in his typical followers."

"Yes, I've seen the kind of people before, in connection with a conductor. It's the old problem of the flies in amber."

"Seen them before! By George, they're all here! There's the expansive' Briton-that underdonelooking man. See how he talks at, through, up against, down upon, everybody and everything! He has a joke for every one. He chaffs them all round, waiters included. He is button-holing the whole table with his eye. Listen

to the monster! How he laughs! You can hear nothing else. What a fearful thing is vulgar geniality! That fellow would chaff the Pope if he could get at him.

"Then there are two or three specimens of the reticent' Briton. That pock-marked fellow, staring so fiercely at four inches of the table in front of him, is one of them. Doesn't he look as if his pockets were full of Orsini bombs? as if he were making up his mind to let them off at once, and blow us all to smithereens? And there's another that hectic man in the white tie, looking as if he had just picked a pocket. They are both in a white terror of being addressed in a foreign tongue; for, behold, beside one sits a restlesslooking Frenchman, and by the other an affable Muscovite. Hinc illæ lacryma! And there is the archæological female Briton-she may be in some otherology' perhaps, but she certainly goes in for 'mind' and science of some sort. They're all the same. You can't mistake them. Limp, and with that mysterious top-knot of scraggy hair gathered together from the uttermost parts of the head. She looks as if a savage had tomahawked her, and, finding the scalp unsatisfactory, had hurriedly replaced it. Doesn't she, Cosmo? Oh, how I suffered from one of the tribe at Eleusis last year! The sun was raging, but she seated herself on a fallen capital and held me, like the Ancient Mariner, while she lectured for half an hour on the spirit of Greek Art. She had come from Athens without an escort, braving the brigands with no protection save her awful virginity; and I fear there is no doubt it got her safe back. And ah! I thought we should find him here; and there be is, sure enough, up at the end of the opposite table-and a fine speci

men he is, too, of the 'domestic ' Briton. You can see through all that fellow's dodges, and read him like a book. These two girls are his daughters, and he trembles for them. Every well-looking individual of the opposite sex is a hawk ready to swoop upon his dovecot. You, Cosmo, are a hawk."

"Thanks; I fear your definition won't permit a tu quoque." "You are, as I say, in this man's perverted vision, a hawk. His mind is full of hawks and foreign counts. The foreign count is his Antichrist, and every well-dressed foreigner is a count within the meaning of the Act.' Observe how he has strategised against hawks and counts. He has thrown out a flanking party on either side of the dove-cote, that tough-looking spinster on the left, obviously an aunt the hobbledehoy on the right, clearly a brother; and he himself is a big gun of position in the centre, ready to go off with fearful detonations."

"The doves are rather pretty, Tom; the blue one is really a charming little ingenue."

"Passable passable; and indeed I find the pink sister not without attraction. Impossible head-gear, though."

at

"Oh, cela va sans dire; present all head-gears are impossible. Now, if you were to tilt back that terrible erection on the girl's head till it sloped from the sky-line of the head, over the neck, you would

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Steady, Cosmo! outlying picket alarmed and signalling to the main body. Look at the weather. Opposite window; charming evening, isn't it? What a bloom there is on that hill opposite! How the last rays of the sun are bringing out the tints of everything!"

แ

"Including that bottle of 'Gat