little house which seemed quite ashamed of its
conventional appearance, and had done its best
to hide it by having tents in its garden and
right up to its very door-step. And as I skirt
the garden I become aware of something
couchant in the grass—something which I
imagine at first to be a snake, but which
turns out to be nothing more than a harmless
policeman off duty, who is lying supine on his
back looking up at the sky, rural, happy,
contemplative—as though there were no such things
as bad "beats" or Irish navvies with homicidal
tendencies. Recalled to sublunary matters by
my approach, he sits up and gives me good day,
and sitting down beside him I enter into
conversation, find him a very pleasant fellow, and
learn from him, amongst other things, that
Canvas Town has a place for public worship, divine
service being performed on Sunday in the grand
stand, to a large and attentive congregation,
and a school—where, however, the "instructors"
are, to a man, from Hythe.

On leaving my policeman, I strayed
pleasantly into the arms of some of my old
companions the Grimgribber Rifles, whose proceedings
I have recorded in earlier numbers of this
journal,* and who received me with the greatest
cordiality. From them I learnt that the most
interesting feature in Wimbledon life was the
camp-fire and its gathering, which was decidedly
a thing to be seen. It sounded well—a camp-
fire, with plenty of punch, and singing, and
ladies' company, to be preceded by a dinner
with my old corps, and to be concluded with a
dog-cart-drive to London—so I agreed to stop,
and very glad I am I determined on this arrangement,
for the camp-fire was the end which
crowned the day's work, and crowned it royally.

* See Grimbribber Rifle Corps, vol. iii., pages 374
and 499; and Grimgribber Position Drill, vol. v.,
page 394.

After a capital dinner, we moved out about
nine o'clock to the "meeting," which was held in
a large open space, a circle, surrounded by a
rising mound, forming a perfectly natural
amphitheatre. In the middle of the circle blazed a
large fire of dried heather; on the mound—
some on chairs (ladies there mostly), some
couchant at full length, some squatting on
their hams like Indians at a council fire—sat a
motley assemblage, composed of volunteers in
all uniforms and from all counties, natives of
Wimbledon neither pure nor simple, gaping
people from town, and people from the
neighbourhood: the ladies muffled in pretty capes
and fantastic hoods and ravishing yachting-
jackets, the gentlemen in that stern simplicity
of white neckcloth and black everything else,
which gives such picturesque dignity to the
dining Briton. Nor was Scotland-yard without
its representatives. Not possessing the
advantages enjoyed by caricaturists, I have
never seen a policeman at supper in my kitchen,
and consequently have never been a spectator
of that hilarity to which the "force" abandons
itself when it is off duty. Certainly, at
Wimbledon, the police never entirely forgot that
they were not as other men; they smiled, they
spoke, they sang, but I imagine the singer only
let out his stock by one hole to suffer his high
C to have scope, and that in no moment of
delight did any one of them cease to give an
occasional slap at his coat-tails, to assure himself
that his truncheon had not been purloined. But
it was very jolly. When we arrived (and we had
scented the burning heather and the tobacco
a quarter of a mile off), Lord Bowling was just
finishing a comic song, which, so far as I could
make out, was about some transaction in which
a Jew and some poached eggs were equally
implicated, and when the roar of applause which
followed the termination died away, Lord Echo,
who was apparently the president of the evening,
called upon "A 395," and that "vigilant
officer," as, no doubt, he has been often
described in print, set to work with a will, and
piped us a sentimental ditty with a good voice
and much real feeling. While he sang I looked
round me in wonder. Rembrandtish—or rather
more after the wild dash of Salvator Rosa—
was the scene; in front the fitful glare of the
fire lighting up now, leaving in dusk then,
uniforms of various sombre hues, relieved here
and there with a sharp bit of scarlet stocking,
the top of which, surrounded by the dark
knickerbocker, glowed like a fire in a grate;
incandescent tips of cigars dotting the black
background, illumined now and then in a little
space by a Vesuvian match; further still, the
long, weird, gaunt common, stunted blank and
dreary, with a ghostly fringe of waning spectral
tents. This was a quiet night. "Not one
of our great meetings," said a Victoria rifle
to me; and yet there must have been between
three and four hundred people present. Close
by me is a family party, evidently from one
of the houses hard by, consisting of papa,
bland and full of port wine; mamma, half
sedate, half anxious; two noble sons of
sixteen and fifteen, braving papa in the matter
of tobacco, and entirely absorbed therein;
some very pretty daughters and dining friends.
As policeman A 395 warbles forth his ditty, one
pretty daughter (the auburn-haired daughter)
and one dining friend (with the shaved face and
the heavy Austrian moustache) want "to see
better"—happy A 395, to be the attraction of
so much curiosity!—so they gradually edge off
until they are quite by themselves, and then they
no doubt see admirably, for the gentleman looks
down at the lady, and the lady looks down at
the turf, and draws figures on it with her
parasol! Never mind, A 395, you are not the
first person, by a good many, who has stood
innocent godfather to this kind of business;
and you quiver so nicely and make such a
prolonged shake on the last note of your song,
that you deserve all the applause and the glass
of punch bestowed on you as you make a stiff
bow and retire.

Who next, my Lord Echo? Who next?
Who, but Harrison? And so soon as the name
is heard, the welkin (what is the welkin? you