i8o ANGLERS' EVENINGS. 



which result have one advantage, for they serve to remind 

 me of Manchester, 



The small room is rapidly emulating Cologne, with its 

 "seven-and-twenty separate and distinct smells," for the 

 odour of smoke is pleasantly mingled with that of burnt 

 leather, arising from the slippers of my absent lord, which 

 have been warming for the last two hours. I don't know 

 that a man cares particularly for hot roast-slippers ; but 

 it is the correct thing to air them, I believe. Christina 

 has also brought in a paraffin lamp, which adds one more 

 odour to the perfumes by which I am surrounded. Also, 

 when she opened the door there was wafted in a breath 

 of wet mackintosh coats, fried onions from the kitchen, 

 and tobacco smoke from the coffee-room. There is a 

 girl in the coffee-room, across the passage, who makes day 

 hideous by continually singing "John Peel.'-' She has a 

 voice like a tuneful nutmeg-grater, and the only time 

 when I envy a deaf person is during her daily practisings. 

 So I read and meditate, and just when 1 am on the 

 point of falling asleep, I hear sounds of the return of my 

 own particular anglers, and come back once more to this 

 world. 



An admiring throng of fellow-lunatics from the other 

 room meet them at the door, and contemplate the result 

 of the day's sport with the most absorbed interest. Every 

 man has a pipe in his mouth and his hands in his pockets, 

 and gazes with profound admiration upon a heap of 

 nasty-smelling, shiny fish, which have been emptied out 

 of the baskets upon a dish. My four gentlemen are 

 several degrees dirtier than when they started off this 



