proves it to be an exception.  Batter it as we may, and do, the faithful needle, with a determination worthy of a better cause, maintains its position at ‘Much Rain.’  The manager is appealed to vehemently, coarsely; he shrugs his shoulders, protests with humility that he cannot help the weather, or affirms it is unprecedented—­which we do not believe.  Other managers—­in the Engadine, for example—­the papers say, are providing excellent weather; what does he mean by it?

At last one morning, wetter than ever, some noble spirit, the Tell of our liberties, exclaims, ’Who would be free, himself must strike the blow.’  His actual words (if one was not writing history) are, ’Hang me if I stand this any longer,’ and they strike the keynote of everybody’s thought.  He goes away by the next train, and his departure is followed by the same effects as the tapping of a reservoir.  The hotel company—­I mean the inmates; the company goes into bankruptcy—­stream off at once to their own homes.  That journey through the pouring rain is the happiest day of our wet holiday.  How beautiful looms soaking, soppy, smoky London!  In that excellent town who cares for rain?

    ’Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! 
    You cataracts and hurricanoes spout.’

Pooh! pooh!  Call a cab—­call two!

TRAVELLING COMPANIONS.

It was held by wise men of old that adversity was the test of friendship, but as his Excellency the Minister of the United States has observed, per Mr. Biglow, ’They did not know everything down in Judee;’ and among other subjects of which those ancient writers were necessarily ignorant was that of Continental travel.  The coming to grief of a friend is unquestionably very inconvenient; as a millionaire of my acquaintance observes (under the influence, as he confidently believes, of benevolent emotion), ’One likes to see one’s friends prosperous;’ but even when they are not so, it requires some effort to follow the dictates of prudence and cast them off.  And, after all, the man, even though you may cut him, remains the same; as fit for the purposes of friendship as ever, except for his pecuniary condition.  There is no such change in his relation to oneself as Emerson describes in one of his essays; his words I forget, and his works are miles away, but the man he has in his mind has in some way fallen short of expectation—­declined, perhaps, to lend the philosopher money.  ‘Yesterday,’ he says, ’my friend was the illimitable ocean; to-day he is a pond.’  He had come to the end of him.  And some friends, as my little child complains as he strokes his black kitten, ‘end so soon.’