savage; nobody being left in the deserted city (as it appeared to
me), to feed them. Public Houses, where splendid footmen swinging
their legs over gorgeous hammer-cloths beside wigged coachmen were
wont to regale, were silent, and the unused pewter pots shone, too
bright for business, on the shelves. I beheld a Punch's Show
leaning against a wall near Park Lane, as if it had fainted. It
was deserted, and there were none to heed its desolation. In
Belgrave Square I met the last man - an ostler - sitting on a post
in a ragged red waistcoat, eating straw, and mildewing away.

If I recollect the name of the little town, on whose shore this sea
is murmuring - but I am not just now, as I have premised, to be
relied upon for anything - it is Pavilionstone. Within a quarter
of a century, it was a little fishing town, and they do say, that
the time was, when it was a little smuggling town. I have heard
that it was rather famous in the hollands and brandy way, and that
coevally with that reputation the lamplighter's was considered a
bad life at the Assurance Offices. It was observed that if he were
not particular about lighting up, he lived in peace; but that, if
he made the best of the oil-lamps in the steep and narrow streets,
he usually fell over the cliff at an early age. Now, gas and
electricity run to the very water's edge, and the South-Eastern
Railway Company screech at us in the dead of night.

But, the old little fishing and smuggling town remains, and is so
tempting a place for the latter purpose, that I think of going out
some night next week, in a fur cap and a pair of petticoat
trousers, and running an empty tub, as a kind of archaeological
pursuit. Let nobody with corns come to Pavilionstone, for there
are breakneck flights of ragged steps, connecting the principal