pigeons often coming and perching on the rail
by Jemmy and seeming to be critical with their
heads on one side, but you'll take as you find.

——

II.

A PAST LODGER RELATES
A WILD STORY OF A DOCTOR.

I have lived in a common-place way, Major,
in common-place times, and should have mighty
Iittle to tell of my own life and adventures
(if I were put to it) that would be likely to
interest any one save myself. But I have a
story by me that shall be yours if you please.
Of this story I have only to say a very few
words. My father had the manuscript of it in
his possession as long as I can remember, and
he once allowed me, when I began to approach
years of discretion, to read it. It was given
to him by a very old friend, whom I dimly
remember about our house when I was a boy—
a French gentleman of obliging manners, and
with a melancholy smile. He fades out of the
memory of my youthful days very early, and
I chiefly remember him because my father
told me that he had received this manuscript
from him, and that in parting with it the French
gentleman had said: "Ah! few people would
believe what went on at that time in France,
but here's a specimen. I don't expect you to
believe it, mind!"

When the time came for examining my
deceased father's papers, this paper turned up
among the rest. I put it aside, being immersed
in business matters at the time, and only came
upon it yesterday, in these very lodgings, in the
course of a periodical rummage among a great
box of papers from my bankers in the Strand
hard by. The periodical rummage came to an
end directly, and, with the zest naturally derived
from a sense that I ought to be doing something
else, I read over every word of the manuscript.
It is faded and yellow, as you see; and it is odd,
as you shall hear. Thus it goes:

It is pretty well known that as the eighteenth
century drew towards its close, and as the
moment approached when the mighty change
which had been long threatening, was actually
about to take place—it is well known, I say, that
we Parisians had got into a condition of mind,
which was about as bad as bad could be.
Luxurious, used up, we had for the most part lost
all sense of enjoyment; while as to any feeling of
duty—Heaven help us! there was little enough
of that. What did we believe of man's
responsibility? We were here to enjoy ourselves
if we could; if we could not why, there was a
remedy.

It was just one of those states of things which
all thinking men were able to see, could not
possibly last long. A great shock must be at
hand, such men said: a constitution so utterly
deranged must pass through some serious
attack before it would be likely to get better.
That "serious attack" came, and the great
French Revolution inaugurated a new condition
of affairs. What I have to relate, however, has
nothing to do with the revolution, but took
place some few years before that great convulsion
shook the world, and another era began.

It is not to be supposed that men who held
the opinions, and led the lives of the better
class of Parisians at that time, were happy.
Indeed, a frank open-hearted man, who was
tolerably content with the world as he found it,
and was able and willing to enjoy himself in it,
would have been looked upon with contempt
by the more enlightened (and miserable) sort,
and would have been regarded as a man
deficient alike in intellect and "ton." There
were few enough of such, however, and the
representatives of the morbid class had it all
their own way. Of course among these it was
not likely that an agency so well calculated to
help them out of their difficulties as suicide
should be neglected, and it is not too much to
say that the sacrifices offered up at that terrible
shrine, were beyond all limits of ordinary
proportion. It was such a resource to fall back
upon, such a quick way out of the difficulty!
Was money short? Was a wife troublesome,
or a mistress obdurate? Was there a course of
east wind setting in? Were pleasures pleasures
no longer, while pain was still pain? Was life,
for any reason, not worth having: was it a bore,
a penance, a hell upon earth? Here was the
remedy at hand—get rid of it. As to what lay
beyond—pooh! one must take his chance.
Perhaps there was nothing. Perhaps there were
the Elysian Fields, with endless earthly
gratifications, and sempiternal youth and freshness,
to make them enjoyable. "Let us be off with all
speed," said the weary ones; "who will help
us on our way?"

Helpers were not wanting. There were
cunning poisons which would dispose of you
in a twinkling, and let you know nothing
about it. There were baths and lancets, and
anybody could seat himself in a warm bath
and open one of his own veins and die with
decency. Then there were pistols, beautiful
little toys all inlaid with silver and mother-
of-pearl, and with your own arms let into
the butt, and your coronet, if you happened—
which was very likely—to be a marquis. And
was there not charcoal? The sleep said to
be produced by its fumes was of the soundest
—no dreams—no waking. But then you must
be sure to stop up all the chinks, or you might
happen to inhale a breath of air, and so find
yourself back among the east winds and
creditors, and the rest of the ills of life, with only
a congestion of the head for your pains. All
the various modes by which our poor little spark
of life may be quenched, were in vogue at that
time, but there was one particular method of
doing the terrible business which was more
fashionable than the rest, and of which it is my
special business to treat.

There was a certain handsome street in Paris,
and in the Faubourg St. Germain, in which
there lived a certain learned and accomplished