If I tell a tale out of school, will any harm come to my old school-girl?  Once, a lady gave her a half-sovereign, which was a source of great pain and anxiety to Goody Twoshoes.  She sewed it away in her old stays somewhere, thinking here at least was a safe investment—­(vestis—­a vest—­an investment,—­pardon me, thou poor old thing, but I cannot help the pleasantry).  And what do you think?  Another pensionnaire of the establishment cut the coin out of Goody’s stays—­an old woman who went upon two crutches!  Faugh, the old witch!  What!  Violence amongst these toothless, tottering, trembling, feeble ones?  Robbery amongst the penniless?  Dogs coming and snatching Lazarus’s crumbs out of his lap?  Ah, how indignant Goody was as she told the story!  To that pond at Potsdam where the carps live for hundreds of hundreds of years, with hunches of blue mould on their back, I dare say the little Prince and Princess of Preussen-Britannien come sometimes with crumbs and cakes to feed the mouldy ones.  Those eyes may have goggled from beneath the weeds at Napoleon’s jack-boots:  they have seen Frederick’s lean shanks reflected in their pool; and perhaps Monsieur de Voltaire has fed them—­and now, for a crumb of biscuit they will fight, push, hustle, rob, squabble, gobble, relapsing into their tranquillity when the ignoble struggle is over.  Sans souci, indeed!  It is mighty well writing “Sans souci” over the gate; but where is the gate through which Care has not slipped?  She perches on the shoulders of the sentry in the sentry-box:  she whispers the porter sleeping in his arm-chair:  she glides up the staircase, and lies down between the king and queen in their bed-royal:  this very night I dare say she will perch upon poor old Goody Twoshoes’s meagre bolster, and whisper, “Will the gentleman and those ladies ask me again?  No, no; they will forget poor old Twoshoes.”  Goody!  For shame of yourself!  Do not be cynical.  Do not mistrust your fellow-creatures.  What?  Has the Christmas morning dawned upon thee ninety times?  For four-score and ten years has it been thy lot to totter on this earth, hungry and obscure?  Peace and good-will to thee, let us say at this Christmas season.  Come, drink, eat, rest awhile at our hearth, thou poor old pilgrim!  And of the bread which God’s bounty gives us, I pray, brother reader, we may not forget to set aside a part for those noble and silent poor, from whose innocent hands war has torn the means of labor.  Enough!  As I hope for beef at Christmas, I vow a note shall be sent to Saint Lazarus Union House, in which Mr. Roundabout requests the honor of Mrs. Twoshoes’s company on Friday, 26th December.

AUTOUR DE MON CHAPEAU.