“Every one says that I am an odd person; I presume I am, and so is every one else taken singly.  I can prove that by Cocker.  One and one make two—­two is even, one is odd, I am but one.  There’s logic for you.  I am also a rambler by temperament.  I ramble my person at my own free will, and my mind rambles quite indifferent as to its intimate connexion with the former.  I look at the stars, and my thoughts are of women—­I look at the earth, and my thoughts run upon heaven—­I frequent the opera, and moralize upon the world and its vanities—­I sit in my pew at church, and my thoughts ramble every where in spite of my endeavours and those of the parson to boot—­I live in town all the year, because it’s the fashion to be here in the season, and because I prefer London most when I can walk about where there is nobody to interrupt me.  In the season, I am allowed to walk into every body’s house, very often get an invite to fill up an odd corner, and as there generally is an odd corner at every party, and I do not stand at a short notice, I eat more good dinners than most people.  I am not a fool, and yet not too clever, so that poised in that happy medium, I hear all, see all, know a great deal of what is going on, and hold my tongue.  When people inhabit their town houses, I spend the whole day going from one to the other.  I consider a house the only safe part of the metropolis.  Were I to frequent the street during the season, I am so apt to fall into a brown study, that I’m certain to be jostled until I am black and blue—­I have found myself calculating an arithmetical problem at a crossing, and have not been aware of my danger until a pair of greys sixteen hands high in full trot have snorted in my face—­I am an idler by profession, live at a club, sleep at chambers, and have just sufficient means to pay my way and indulge my disposition.  But I’ve not stated why I particularly like town when it is empty.  It is because I feel relieved of all the fashionable et ceteras.  By the time the season is over I am tired of dinners, of wine, of the opera, the eternal announcement of visiters at parties and balls, the music, the exotics, the suppers, the rattling of carriages, and the rattling of tongues.  I rejoice at last to find London en deshabille—­I can then do as I please without any fear of losing my character as a fashionable man.  I consider that I can in London extract more amusement in a given quantity of ground than at any other place.  A street will occupy me for a whole day:  with an indifferent coat, and nothing but silver in my waistcoat pocket, I stop at every shop-window and examine every thing.  Should it so happen that the prices are affixed to every article displayed, I make it a rule to read every one of them.  I know therefore when Urling’s lace is remarkably cheap, the value of most articles of millinery, the relative demands for boots, shoes, and hats, and prices of ‘reach-me-downs’ at a ready-made warehouse.  At a pawn-broker’s