that tub, I shall escape. I shall make a
Thermopylæ of the corner of one of them, defend
it with my cutlass against the coast-guard
until my brave companions have sheered off,
then dive into the darkness, and regain my
Susan's arms. In connection with these break-
neck steps I observe some wooden cottages,
with tumble-down out-houses and back-yards
three feet square, adorned with garlands of
dried fish, in which (though the General Board
of Health might object), my Susan dwells.

The South Eastern Company have brought
Pavilionstone into such vogue, with their
tidal trains and splendid steam-packets, that
a new Pavilionstone is rising up. I am,
myself, of New Pavilionstone. We are a little
mortary and limey at present, but we are
getting on capitally. Indeed, we were getting
on so fast, at one time, that we rather overdid
it, and built a street of shops, the business
of which may be expected to arrive in about
ten years. We are sensibly laid out in general;
and with a little care and pains (by no
means wanting, so far), shall become a very
pretty place. We ought to be, for our situation
is delightful, our air is delicious, and our
breezy hills and downs, carpeted with wild
thyme, and decorated with millions of wild
flowers, are, on the faith of a pedestrian, perfect.
In New Pavilionstone we are a little too
much addicted to small windows with more
bricks in them than glass, and we are not
over-fanciful in the way of decorative
architecture, and we get unexpected sea-views
through cracks in the street-doors; on the
whole, however, we are very snug and
comfortable, and well accommodated. But the
Home Secretary (if there be such an officer)
cannot too soon shut up the burial-ground of
the old parish church. It is in the midst of
us, and Pavilionstone will get no good of it, if
it be too long left alone.

The lion of Pavilionstone is its Great Hotel.
A dozen years ago, going over to Paris by
South-Eastern Tidal Steamer, you used
to be dropped upon the platform of the main
line Pavilionstone Station (not a Junction
then), at eleven o'clock on a dark winter's
night, in a roaring wind; and in the howling
wilderness outside the station, was a short
omnibus which brought you up by the forehead
the instant you got in at the door; and
nobody cared about you, and you were alone
in the world. You bumped over infinite
chalk, until you were turned out at a strange
building which had just left off being a barn
without having quite begun to be a house,
where nobody expected your coming, or knew
what to do with you when you were come,
and where you were usually blown about,
until you happened to be blown against the
cold beef, and finally into bed. At five in the
morning you were blown out of bed, and after
a dreary breakfast, with crumpled company,
in the midst of confusion, were hustled on
board a steamboat and lay wretched on deck
until you saw France lunging and surging
at you with great vehemence over the
bowsprit.

Now, you come down to Pavilionstone in a
free and easy manner, an irresponsible agent,
made over in trust to the South-Eastern
Company, until you get out of the railway-
carriage at high-water mark. If you are
crossing by the boat at once, you have nothing
to do but walk on board and be happy there
if you can—I can't. If you are going to our
Great Pavilionstone Hotel, the sprightliest
porters under the sun, whose cheerful looks are
a pleasant welcome, shoulder your luggage,
drive it off in vans, bowl it away in trucks,
and enjoy themselves in playing athletic games
with it. If you are for public life at our Great
Pavilionstone Hotel, you walk into that
establishment as if it were your club; find ready
for you, your news-room, dining-room, smoking-
room, billiard-room, music-room, public
breakfast, public dinner twice a-day (one
plain, one gorgeous), hot baths and cold
baths. If you want to be bored, there are
plenty of bores always ready for you, and
from Saturday to Monday in particular, you
can be bored (if you like it) through and
through. Should you want to be private at
our Great Pavilionstone Hotel, say but the
word, look at the list of charges, choose your
floor, name your figure—there you are,
established in your castle, by the day, week,
month, or year, innocent of all comers or
goers, unless you have my fancy for walking
early in the morning down the groves of
boots and shoes, which so regularly flourish
at all the chamber-doors before breakfast,
that it seems to me as if nobody ever got up
or took them in. Are you going across the
Alps, and would you like to air your Italian
at our Great Pavilionstone Hotel? Talk to
the Manager—always conversational,
accomplished, and polite. Do you want to be
aided, abetted, comforted, or advised, at our
Great Pavilionstone Hotel? Send for the
good landlord, and he is your friend. Should
you, or anyone belonging to you, ever be taken
ill at our Great Pavilionstone Hotel you will
not soon forget him or his kind wife. And
when you pay your bill at our Great
Pavilionstone Hotel, you will not be put out of
humour by anything you find in it.

A thoroughly good inn, in the days of
coaching and posting, was a noble place;
and I mean, with permission, before long,
humbly to offer my experience of such
establishments, in these pages. But, none of
them would have been equal to the
reception of four or five hundred people,
all of them wet through, and half of
them dead sick, every day in the year.
This is where we shine, in our Pavilionstone
Hotel. Again—who, coming and going, pitching
and tossing, boating and training, hurrying
in and flying out, could ever have calculated
the fees to be paid at an old-fashioned
house? In our Pavilionstone Hotel vocabulary,
there is no such word as fee. Everything