(_Being a Fragment from a Matter-of-fact Romance._)
And he walked along the deserted streets and could see no one. Here
and there would be a pile of stones and wooden blocks, telling of
an impeded thoroughfare, but the place itself was empty. There were
seemingly no inhabitants in this deserted city. They had vanished into
thin, or, rather, murky air.
Then he looked at what appeared to be a playhouse. The doors were
closed, and the bill-boards were pasted over with blue paper.
Evidently the portals of the theatre had not been open for weeks,
perchance for months.
And it was the same in the parks. Only the leaves moved, and then only
when the wind agitated them. There were a few sparrows in the trees,
but they seemed to be ashamed of themselves, and chirruped (so to
speak) with bated breath. Oh it was indeed a scene of desolation.
And the shops, too! Many of them were closed, and those which were
open seemed to be tenantless. There were no customers; no counter
attendants. Trade seemed to be as dead as the proverbial door-nail.
And the hoardings too! Even they had suffered. Old posters, manifestly
out of date, fluttered in tatters; it had been no one's business to
restore the rotting paper, and it had gone the way of other grass. The
placards were worse than useless; they could not be deciphered.
And yet again he marched on. There were exhibitions, and no one to see
them; museums, and no visitors to inspect them; and churches, and
no one to fill them. At length he came upon a guardian of the public
peace who was lazily gazing into the sluggish river over the parapet
of an embankment.
"Good sir," said he, "can you tell me if this dreadful, lonely,
deserted place is the City of the Dead?"
"Go along with you!" cried the policeman, good-humouredly; "it's only
London in September!"
And then he felt that he had been deceived by appearances!
* * * * *
History Repeats Itself Again.
["The alleged unemployed who assemble on Tower Hill are
becoming worse even than mountebanks. One of the speakers
declared yesterday that 'The secret societies of London are
going to-night to wait on Mr. GLADSTONE, to ask what he is
going to do. If the PRIME MINISTER does not give a definite
reply, they will take him on their backs and throw him into
the Thames.'"--_The Daily Telegraph, Sept. 1._]
The _genius loci_ haunts
Historic Tower Hill,
For, judging by their vaunts,
Men lose their heads there still.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE MINOR ILLS OF LIFE.
PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN ATTEMPTING TO REGAIN HIS TENT AFTER THE
MORNING BATH.]
* * * * *