The Self-invited Visitor (suddenly emerging from the shadow).—­You’ll be ’appy to know, Mum, that your ’ospitality will not exceed the ‘alf-crown.  Good evenin’. [Retires to the Paragon.

The Econ.  L. (regretfully).  And a lobster ordered in for supper a-purpose for him, too!

A Street Musician (with a portable piano).  I will next attempt a love-song.  I feel full of love to-night.  Oh, Ladies and Gentlemen—­(earnestly)—­take advantage of a salubrious night like this!  Anyone who has not yet contributed will kindly embrace this opportunity of placing his offering upon the instrument; after which I shall endeavour to sing you “In Old Madrid.”  Oh, what a difficult ditty it is, to be sure, dear Ladies and Gentlemen—­especially as it makes the twenty-seventh I’ve sung since tea-time—­however, I will do my best. (He sings it.) That will conclude my al-fresco Concert for this evening.  And now, thanking you all for your generous patronage of my humble efforts, and again reminding those who have not yet expressed their appreciation in a pecuniary form, that I am now about to circulate with the hat for the last time, I wish you all farewell, and balmy slumbers!

    [He collects the final coins, and wheels away the piano.  The
    crowd disperses; the listeners in the lodging-house balconies
    retire; and the Crescent is silent and deserted.

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

One of the Baron’s “Merry Men All” has been reading and enjoying Mr. BARRY PAIN’s Stories and Interludes.  The book has a wondrously weird and heavily-lined picture in front, which is just a little too like a “Prophetic Hieroglyphic” in Zadkiel’s Almanack.  An emaciated and broken-winged devil is apparently carrying an engine-hose through a churchyard, whilst a bat flits against a curious sky, which looks like a young grainer’s first attempt at imitating “birds’-eye maple.”  Upon a second glance it seems possible that the “hose” is a snake, the tail of which the devil is gnawing.  The gruesome design illustrates a yet more gruesome Interlude, entitled, “The Bat and the Devil.” But it gives no fair idea of the contents of the volume, some of which are charming.

Read White Nights, stories within a story, told by a tragical “Fool,” of the breed of HUGO’s Rigoletto, and POE’s Hopfrog—­with a difference.  They are told with force and grace, and with unstrained, but moving pathos.  Read “The Dog That Got Found,” a brief sketch indeed, but abundantly suggestive.  Poor Fido—­the “dog that got to be utterly sick of conventionality,” and came to such bitter grief in his search for “life poignant and intense!” He might read a lesson to many a two-legged prig, were the bipedal nincompoop capable of learning it.