answer. In very short space of time middle-aged
lady, two daughters, and little girl, all
emerge from 13, with wrappers over heads and
smiling countenances, and knocking at No.7,
are instantly admitted.

"9.50. The whole party from No.13—middle-aged
lady, three grown-up daughters, and little
girl—come out of No.7. They take a polite leave
of butler at hall door, and return home. Each
of them carries small morocco-covered case in
hand. SHOULD SAY THEY WERE PRESENTS."

What would be the feelings of the
individuals who had employed Messrs. Pollaky's
agent to watch those two houses, Nos.7 and
13, on perusing the above report! How they
would foam with rage as they read that at last
the embroidered cushion had been accepted;
that one of those "odious girls" had succeeded
in forcing her company upon her aunt when the
old lady took her Bath-chair exercise, while
another was promoted to the honour of a seat in the
carriage! Then, again, that present of the cap
to the confidential servant, what depths of
treachery would that act not suggest? Lastly,
that hideous picture of the whole family
retiring from the house of the opulent one, laden
with presents—old family jewels, perhaps—and
making night hideous with the exulting smiles
which beamed upon their graceless countenances.
Oh! surely here is something like an occasion
for Mr. Pollaky and his trustworthy young man,
and surely the annals of that sinister office must
contain such cases. If not, it soon will, to a
dead certainty.

There is something almost terrible about this
licensed spy system. That man at the corner of
the street is a dreadful being. Suppose a Bishop
should feel inclined to go to the Derby in plain
clothes, what a wretched thing it is for him to
reflect, as he puts on a pair of shepherd's plaid
trousers and a paletot, in place of the usual
apron and tights, that he will have to pass that
man at the corner, who is possibly an emissary
of a bishop of different principles, and who is
there to watch the house. Suppose a family
desirous of economising and prepared for a time
to go through with a course of chop dinners, is it
pleasant to have that man at the corner inspecting
the butcher's tray, day after day, and making
notes of its contents, to be written in the annals
of the office, a copy being sent to our dearest
enemies. Suppose that I get out of an invitation
to dine with the Fingerglasses, giving the excuse
that I shall be out of town on the day for which
they are kind enough to ask me, is it pleasant on
the evening of Fingerglass's festival to have
Pollaky's young man scrutinising my appearance
as I hand my consort into the cab in which we are
conveyed to the theatre on the sly?

But there are a host of small changes which
demand to be chronicled, of which this Pollaky
system is but one. What are the others?

We have given up, except under peculiar
circumstances, introducing people to one another.
This fashion of non-introducing has, like many
other fashions, descended to the upper middle
classes from the grade next above them. Now
it is important that in adopting any invention—
and a fashion is an invention—we should always
be careful to reproduce all the circumstances
under which that invention, which we wish to
avail ourselves of successfully, operates. It is very
important that we should remember this, and
yet we seldom do so. A lady sees a toilet which
she admires very much. As the carriage in which
the person who wears that toilet dashes past,
Pedestria looks after it and determines that
bonnet, dress, parasol, are all admirable. She
determines also to become possessed as quickly
as possible of a set of articles resembling those
as closely as may be. Well, this determination
is carried out with all speed, but somehow or
other it happens that when the apparel comes
home the whole thing is a failure. And why is
this? Everything has been copied exactly;
what is wanting? The carriage is wanting.
The "get up" of that lady whom Pedestria
admired so much has been reproduced, but with
one of the elements of its success omitted.
The toilet was a carriage toilet, and it absolutely
looks bad on a pedestrian.

Sometimes this same theory is illustrated in
another manner. A certain nobleman has a
taste for art. He goes to the studio of an eminent
painter, and being himself a tolerably successful
amateur, determines to set up a similar establishment.
And so he does. His room is the same
size as that of the professional gentleman, his
light is the same, his window the same. He
employs the same models as the artist, and his
lay figure is own brother to the lay figure next
door. How is it that after a time all this comes
to nothing? Everything that the artist has got
together the nobleman has got together, but still
the pictures produced by the latter will not do,
and by-and-by he gives up even attempting to
rival his neighbour. Now all this comes, as in
the case just before cited, from the omission of
one ingredient in the success of the studio,
window, lay-figure, and all the rest of it, out of
which the professional man got such brilliant
results. That ingredient was GENIUS.

It is in this manner that persons belonging to
the middle classes very often bring upon
themselves considerable annoyance by imitating part
of a scheme the other portions of which they are,
by the laws under which they live, unable to
copy. This fashion of non-introduction is taken
from a set of people the reverse of numerous,
whose numbers receive no accession from without,
and who are perpetually meeting each other.
This is the position of that " upper ten thousand"
of which we hear so much, to our unspeakable
weariness. What do they want with introductions?

With the middle class the case is widely different.
It is an enormously large class, instead
of a very small one, its members are continually
being augmented from without, and new members