"So you see," continued Mr. George, "you would lose the interest on the money you pay for the chain every year; and besides that, you would lose a portion of the chain itself. When you have money safely invested at interest, you have the interest every year, and at the end of the term you have your capital restored to you entire. But in such a purchase as this, you are sure, in the end, to sink a portion of it by wear, and tear, and depreciation; and this circumstance ought always to be taken into account."

"Yes," said Rollo; "that is very true."

"Making such a calculation as this," continued Mr. George, "will often help us determine whether it is wise or not to make a purchase. The question is, whether you would get as much pleasure from the possession and use of this chain as sixty cents a year would come to."

"Yes," said Rollo; "I think I should."

"That would be five cents a month," said Mr. George.

"Yes," repeated Rollo; "I think I should."

"And one cent and a quarter a week," added Mr. George. "Do you think you would get pleasure enough out of your chain to come to a cent and a quarter a week?"

"Yes," said Rollo, confidently; "I am sure I should."

"I think it very likely you would," said Mr. George; "and if so, it would be a wise purchase."

It was not necessary absolutely that Rollo should obtain his uncle George's approval of any plan which he might form for the expenditure of his surplus funds, since it was Mr. Holiday's plan that Rollo should spend his money as he chose, provided only that he did not buy any thing that would either be injurious or dangerous to himself, or a source of annoyance to others. Now, in respect to the chain, Rollo knew very well himself that it was not liable to either of these objections, and that he was consequently at liberty to purchase it if he thought best. In the conversation, therefore, described above, his object was not so much to obtain his uncle's consent that he should make the purchase as to avail himself of his uncle's opinion and judgment in the case, in order to enable him to judge wisely himself.

"I think," said he, at length, in announcing to his uncle his decision, "that it will be a good plan for me to buy the chain; but I will not be in haste about it. I will wait a day or two. I may possibly see something else that I shall like better."



CHAPTER IX.

ST. PAUL'S.

Mr. George and Rollo, just before they reached St. Paul's, had a very unexpected addition made to their party. The person was no other than Rollo's mother.

Rollo's father and mother had come from Paris to London the day before, though Rollo had not expected them so soon as this. It might have been supposed that in making the tour they would keep in company with Mr. George and Rollo all the time; but this was not the plan which they adopted. Mr. Holiday's health was still quite feeble, and he wished to travel in a very quiet and easy manner. Mr. George and Rollo, on the other hand, were full of life and spirits. They wished to go every where, and to see every thing, and had very little fear of either fatigue or exposure.

"It will be better, therefore," said Mr. Holiday, "that we should act independently of each other. You may go your way, and we will go ours. We shall meet occasionally, and then you can relate us your adventures."

In accordance with this plan, Rollo's father and mother remained in Paris a few days after Mr. George and Rollo had left that city; and now they had just arrived in London. Jane came with them. And now it happened, by a very remarkable coincidence, that Mr. George and Rollo met them in St. Paul's Churchyard when they were going to visit the cathedral.

St. Paul's Churchyard is a street. It surrounds the yard in which St. Paul's stands, and is bordered on the outer side by ranges of magnificent shops and houses. Thus the street has buildings on one side, and the monstrous iron palisade which forms the enclosure of St. Paul's on the other, all around it.

The yard in which St. Paul's stands is in general of an oval form, though not regularly so. One side curves a great deal, while the other side is nearly straight. The street, of course, corresponds with the outline of the yard, being nearly straight on one side of the church, and quite of a crescent form on the other—being shaped thus somewhat like a bow. They call the curved side of the street the Bow, and the straight side the String. The Bow is on the south side of the church, and the String is on the north side.

Some of the most splendid shops in London are situated in this street, particularly in the part of it called the String. There are shops for the sale of books and engravings, of millinery of all kinds, of laces and embroideries of every sort, of caps and bonnets, and of silver plate and jewelry. It seems a little strange to the visitor to see so great a display of such vanities as these in a street called a Churchyard; but there are a great many such apparent inconsistencies between the names and uses of the streets in London.

It was in St. Paul's Churchyard that Rollo met his mother. The cab which he and his uncle were in had stopped opposite the great gate which led to the church. Rollo stepped out first; and while he was waiting for his uncle George, he saw his mother just coming out of one of the shops on the other side.

"Why, uncle George!" said he; "there's mother!"

So saying, he ran across the street to meet his mother.

Mrs. Holiday was overjoyed to see Rollo coming; so was Jennie, who was sitting all the time in the carriage with Mr. Holiday. After some conversation on other subjects, Rollo told his mother that he and Mr. George were going to see St. Paul's.

"I might go too," said his mother.

"Yes, mother!" said Rollo, eagerly. "Do, mother!"

"I would go," said Mr. Holiday. "It will be a very good opportunity for you—the best you will have, in fact; for I shall not be able to go up so many stairs myself. Jennie can go home with me."

Jennie did not like this part of the proposal, but seemed very desirous to go with her mother.

"Why, Jennie!" said her mother. "I do not think you could climb so high. I don't think you know how high it is."

"Ah, yes, mother," said Rollo, "she can climb very well; besides, I can help her if she gets tired."

It was finally agreed that Jennie should go too; and so the whole party, excepting Mr. Holiday, walked across the street and began to ascend the great flight of circular steps which led to the door in the north transept of the church, that being the door at which strangers and visitors are usually admitted.

On entering the church, they found themselves ushered into an interior so vast in extent, and so lofty in height, as to overwhelm them with wonder. They walked along over the smooth stone pavement towards the centre of the cross, and there stood and looked up into the dome, which swelled in a vast concave far up over their heads, like a sky of stone. The ceiling of the dome was divided into compartments, which were covered with paintings. These paintings had become a good deal faded and decayed; and on one side of the dome, nearly two hundred feet above where the party was standing, there was a platform hanging in the air, with workmen and artists upon it repainting the figures. From the place where he now stood, however, Rollo could only see the under side of this platform and some of the ropes by which it was suspended.

"Do you see that gallery," said Mr. George to Rollo, pointing upwards, "which runs all around just under the dome?"

"I see a small railing, or balustrade," said Mrs. Holiday.

"There is a gallery there," said Mr. George, "eight or ten feet wide, though we do not see the width of it very distinctly here. And the railing, or balustrade, which looks so small here, we shall find is not very small when we come to get up to it."

"Can we get up there?" said Mrs. Holiday.

"Yes," replied Mr. George. "That must be the celebrated whispering gallery."

"How do you know?" asked Rollo.

"I have read descriptions of it in books," said Mr. George. "They said that the whispering gallery was a gallery passing entirely around the centre of the church, over the choir, and just under the dome; and so that must be it. All that is the dome that rises above it."

"Let us go up there, then," said Rollo.

The party walked about the floor of the church a few minutes longer, though they found but little to interest them in what they saw except the vastness of the enclosed interior and the loftiness of the columns and walls. There were several colossal monuments standing here and there; but in general the church had a somewhat empty and naked appearance. The immense magnitude, however, of the spaces which the party traversed, and the lofty heights of the columns, and arches, and ceilings which they looked up to above, filled them with wonder.

At length, near the foot of a staircase, in a sort of corner, they found a man in a little office, whose business it was to sell to visitors tickets of admission, to enable them to view such parts of the church, especially those situated in the upper regions of it, as it would not be proper to leave entirely open to the public. For these places attendants are required, to guard the premises from injury, as well as to show the visitors the way they are to go and to explain to them what they see; and for this a fee is charged, according in tariff, which is set down in the guide books thus:——

COST OF ADMISSION.

s. d.

Whispering, Stone, and Golden Galleries, 0 6

Ball, 1 6

Library, Great Bell, Geometrical Staircase, and Model Room, 0 6

Clock, 0 2

Crypt and Nelson's Monument, 0 6 —— 3 2

Mr. George knew in general that this was the arrangement for showing the church to visitors; but he had not examined the tariff particularly to know what the prices were which were charged for the several parts of the show. He did not care particularly about this, however, for he meant to see all.

Accordingly, when the party came up to the little office where the man sold the tickets, and the man asked them how much they wished to see, Mr. George turned to Mrs. Holiday, saying,—

"We wish to see all, I suppose, do we not?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Holiday; "let us see all there is to be seen."

"Then it will be nine shillings and sixpence," said the ticket man; "three shillings and twopence each for the three. I shall not charge for the young lady. I presume, moreover," he added, with a smile, "that she will not wish to go up into the ball."

So Mr. George took out his purse, and Mrs. Holiday took out hers at the same time.

"I will pay," said Mr. George.

"We will all pay," said Mrs. Holiday. "The easiest way to keep our accounts is for each to pay as we go."

So Mrs. Holiday, Mr. George, and Rollo paid each three shillings and twopence, and the man gave them a variety of tickets in return.

"Those," said he, "are for the gallery," pointing out the tickets at the same time as he presented them; "and those are for the ball. These are for the crypt. You keep these till you get down stairs."

Rollo wondered what the crypt could be; but, as he considered the whole party as now under Mr. George's guidance, he thought he would not inquire, but wait until he should see.

There are several different staircases in St. Paul's by which one can ascend to the upper portions of the edifice. Our party began immediately to mount by one which commenced very near to the place where they had bought their tickets. The stairs were circular, being built in a sort of round tower which stood in the angle of the cross.

Rollo took Jane by the hand and went before, while Mr. George and Mrs. Holiday followed.

"Round and round, round and round, higher and higher above the ground," said Rollo to Jennie.

"Go slowly," said Mr. George, "or else you will get very tired before you get to the top."

"The stairs are very easy," said Mrs. Holiday.

"Yes," said Mr. George; "they are very easy indeed."

The stairs were, indeed, very easy—the steps being very broad, and the "rise," as it is called, of each one being very small. Rollo and Jennie went on very gayly; and, as they kept about half a turn, of the staircase in advance, they were generally just out of sight of Mr. George and Mrs. Holiday, who followed somewhat more slowly behind. Jennie would have been afraid to have gone thus out of sight of her mother and uncle were it not that she could hear their voices all the time close at hand, and their footsteps, also, on the stairs.

From time to time, as our party ascended, they met other parties coming down. When there were children in these descending parties, they tripped along very lightly in coming down; but Rollo and Jennie soon found themselves growing quite tired. So they stopped to rest. After stopping a moment, Rollo's mind seemed to swing, like a pendulum, to the opposite extreme.

"Let us run, Jennie," said he, "and then we shall get up quicker."

"No, it will tire us more to run," replied Jennie.

"But then we shall get up all the quicker," said Rollo, "and so it will not make any difference. We may as well work hard and have it over quick as to work not so hard and have it last a great while."

"Well," said Jennie, "then let us run."

This reasoning of Rollo's was very specious and plausible, but it was very erroneous notwithstanding; for it is found by experience that the whole amount of fatigue which results from doing any given piece of work is by no means the same when it is done quickly as when it is done slowly. A horse, for example, if you allow him to jog along slowly, at the rate of three or four miles an hour, can travel forty miles a day, for months at a time, without growing thin; but if you drive him at the rate of eight miles an hour, he cannot stand more than ten miles a day for any long period. That is, he can do four times as much in amount, with the same degree of fatigue, if you allow him to do it slowly.

It is curious that the case is precisely the same with a steam engine. A steamer can cross the Atlantic with a very much smaller supply of coal, if she goes slowly, than if she goes fast. One might imagine that it would take just twice as much coal to go ten miles an hour as would be required to go five; but in reality it takes more than four times as much—the higher rate of speed requiring a very disproportionate expenditure of power.

If, therefore, you have a long way to walk, or a high ascent to climb, and are afraid that your strength may not hold out;—

Or if you have a horse to drive a long journey, and are afraid that he will tire out before he gets to the end of it;—

Or if you have a steamer to propel, and are not sure that you have coal enough to last to the end of the voyage;—

In these, and in all similar cases, the more slowly you go, the farther the force you have will carry you before it becomes exhausted.

Rollo and Jennie went on running for a few minutes, as they ascended the staircase, round and round; but their strength was soon spent by this violent exertion, and they sat down on the stairs entirely exhausted. And yet they had not come up very high. The whole height of this first staircase, which the party were now ascending, was only about as much as a house four stories high; whereas the whole height of the church, to the very top, is equal to that of a house—if such a house there could be—forty stories high. So that thus far they had come not one tenth part of the way to the top.

While Rollo and Jennie were sitting on the stairs, resting from their fatigue, they began to hear, after a time, the voices of Mr. George and Mrs. Holiday, ascending.

"Are we nearly at the top?" said Rollo.

"I don't know," said Mr. George. "Stay till you get rested, and then follow on."

So saying, Mr. George and Mrs. Holiday passed by, ascending the stairs very slowly, step by step, as they had begun.

Rollo and Jennie were not willing to be left behind; so they followed immediately; and after a few more turns they found themselves, to their great joy, at the top of the staircase. They came out in a large garret-like looking room, which was over the south transept of the church. You can see the end of the south transept in the engraving. It is the part which you see projecting from the main body of the church on the right, with a circular portico leading to it. There is a similar circular portico, with circular steps outside, at the entrance to the north transept, on the other side of the church, which, however, is not shown in the engraving.



The party passed under a great archway which led towards the centre of the church, and presently they came to another long and garret-like looking hall, or corridor, with great arches of masonry passing over it from one side to the other at regular intervals along its whole length, like the beams and rafters of wood in an ordinary garret. This great vacant space was directly over one of the side aisles of the church.[D]

[D] The reader will recollect, from the description of Westminster Abbey, that the central part of the body of the church is called the nave, and that the parts of each side of the nave, beyond the ranges of columns that border it on the north and on the south, are called the aisles, and that the aisles are not so high usually as the nave. The long, vacant space which our party was now traversing was directly over the south aisle. They were coming towards the spectator, in the view of the church represented in the engraving. You see two towers in the front of the building shown in the engraving. The one on the right hand is on the south, and is called the clock tower. The other tower, which is on the north, is called the belfry. The party were coming along over the south aisle and south transept towards this south tower. If you read this explanation attentively, comparing it with the engraving, and compare the rest of the description with the engraving, you will be able to follow the party exactly through the whole of their ascent.

"What a monstrous long garret!" said Rollo.

"Yes," said Mr. George; "and there is something very curious about this garret, as you call it, which I will explain to you some other time."

Rollo was very willing to have this explanation postponed; for his attention was just now attracted by some curious-looking tools, consisting of axes, hammers, and saws, which were arranged in a very symmetrical manner, in a sort of circle, on the wall near him. There were two or three men in this part of the building, and one of them came forward to show this party which way they were to go. Rollo asked this man what these tools were for. He said they were to be used in case of fire.

The tools were very antique and venerable in their form, and looked as if they might have been hanging where they were untouched for centuries.

"Yes," said Rollo; "and there are some buckets, too, for the same purpose."

So saying, he pointed to a row of buckets which he saw hanging along the wall on the other side.

"Yes," said Jennie; "and there is a little fire engine."

The man who had undertaken to guide them now led the way, and the party followed him, till they came to the clock tower, which is the one that is seen in the engraving in the front of the building, towards the right. Then he conducted them, after passing through various galleries and chambers, to a large and handsome room, with a table and some chairs in the middle of it, and carved bookcases filled with very ancient-looking books all round the sides. As soon as the party had all entered the room the guide turned round towards them, and, in a very formal and monotonous manner, like a schoolboy reciting a speech which he had committed to memory for a declamation, made the following statement:—

"This room is the library room of the dean and chapter. It is fifty feet long and forty feet wide. The floor is of oak. It is made of two thousand three hundred and seventy-six square pieces, curiously inlaid, without a nail or a peg to fasten them together."

After looking about for a little time in this room, in which, after all, there was nothing very remarkable or interesting except the idea that it was situated in one of the towers of St. Paul's, the party were conducted across the end of the church towards the other tower seen in the engraving; that is, the tower on the left, which is used as a belfry. In passing through from one of these towers to the other, the party traversed a sort of gallery which was built here across the end of the church, and which afforded a very commanding view of the whole interior of the edifice. The whole party stopped a moment in this gallery to look down into the church below. They could see through the whole length of it, five hundred feet; and Rollo and Jennie were very much amused at the groups of people that were walking about here and there, like mites, on the marble floor. They could see, at a great distance, the place where the transepts crossed the main building; but of course they could not see far into the transepts. In the same manner they could see the beginning of the dome; but they could not see very far up into it, the view being cut off by the vaulted roof of the nave, which was nearer.

After this our party went to see various other curious places in and near these two great towers. One of these places was called the model room, where there is a very large model of a plan for a church which Sir Christopher Wren, the architect who built St. Paul's, first designed. By most good judges, it is thought to be a better design than the one which was finally adopted. There were, besides this, various other curious models and old relics in this room.

The party also went up into the clock tower, by means of a very narrow, steep, and winding staircase, where there was only room for one to go at a time. The steps were of stone, but they were greatly worn away by the footsteps of the thousands of visitors that had ascended them.

There was a woman at the top of the stairs who had the charge of the clock room. This woman showed the party the wheels of the clock, which were of prodigious magnitude.[E] There were three bells—two that were called the small bells, though they were really very large, and one which was called the large bell. This last, Rollo said, was a monster.

[E] The works of this clock are on such a scale that the pendulum is fourteen feet long, and the weight at the end weighs more than one hundred pounds. The minute hand is eight feet long, and weighs seventy-five pounds.

"The small bells," said the woman, pointing up to the bells, which Rollo and Jennie saw far above their heads, in the midst of a maze of beams and rafters, "chime the quarter hours. The great bell strikes the hours, and tolls in case of the death of any member of the royal family."

"I don't see any thing very remarkable about them," said Rollo to his mother. "They are only three common bells."

"No," replied Mrs. Holiday, "the things themselves that are to be seen are nothing. It is only the curious places that we climb up to to see them, and the thought that we are in the veritable old St. Paul's."

After having talked some little time with the woman about the clock and the bells, and about the visitors that come from day to day to see them, the party descended again, by the dark and narrow stairway, to the great corridor by which they came to this part of the church, in order to visit the parts of the edifice connected with the dome and cupola, which are, in some respects, more interesting than all the rest.



CHAPTER X.

THE DOME OF ST. PAUL'S.

The dome of St. Paul's rises above the centre of the church, over the intersection of the arms of the cross. There are, in fact, two domes—an interior and an exterior one; and there are three galleries connected with them which strangers visit. The first of these galleries is an interior one. It passes round the church on the inside, just at the base of the interior dome. Our party were going first to visit this gallery.

They accordingly walked back through the whole length of the long corridor described at the close of the last chapter, and then turned in towards the centre of the building through a sort of passage way leading to a door which was pointed out to them by the guide. On entering this door, they found themselves ushered at once into the whispering gallery. This they found was a vast circular gallery, extending all round the interior of the church, directly under the dome.

"Ah," said Mr. George, "here we are in the whispering gallery!"

There was a man standing just inside the door. He accosted the party as soon as they came in.

"Ladies and gentlemen," said he, "this is the whispering gallery. If you will pass round to the other side of it, and put your ears against the wall, I will show you the effect."

So, Mr. George leading the way, and the others following, they all passed round the gallery towards the other side. The gallery was not very wide, the space being only sufficient for two or three persons to walk abreast. There was a high balustrade on the edge of it, and on the other side a continuous seat against the wall. First Rollo and Jennie, running forward a little way, sat down on the seat to try it. Then, going forward again a little in advance of Mr. George and Mrs. Holiday, they stopped to look over the balustrade. Rollo could look over it down upon the floor of the church far below. Jennie was not tall enough to look over the balustrade, and so she looked through.

"There!" said Rollo to Jennie, pointing down; "there's the place where we stood when we looked up to this whispering gallery at the time we first came in."

The party went on until they had walked half round the gallery and were exactly opposite the man who was standing at the door where they had entered. Here Mr. George stopped and sat down upon the seat.



"Come," said he, "we must all sit down on this seat and put our ears against the wall."

Mrs. Holiday and the children did as Mr. George had directed, and listened. The man at the door, then putting his mouth to the wall, began to speak in a low tone,—almost in a whisper, in fact,—saying something about the building of the church; and though he was at a great distance from them,—so far, that if he had been in the open air it would have been necessary for him to have called out in a very loud voice to make them hear,—yet every word and syllable of his whisper was distinctly audible, the sound being brought round in some mysterious manner along the smooth surface of the wall.

"It is very extraordinary!" said Mrs. Holiday.

"It is, indeed!" said Mr. George.

Rollo himself, however, did not seem to be so much interested in this acoustic phenomenon as his uncle had been. His attention was attracted to the spectacle of the workmen, who were employed in repainting the inner surface of the dome, and whom he could now see at their work on the staging which he had looked up to from below. One side of the staging—the side towards the wall—was supported by a cornice, which it rested upon there. The other side—the side that was towards the centre of the dome—was suspended by ropes and pulleys, which came down through the lantern from a vast height above.

There was a ladder, the foot of which rested on this staging, the top of it being placed against the surface of the dome above. There was a man upon this ladder, near the top of it, at work on the ceiling, and two or three assistants on the staging at the foot of it.

Rollo and Jennie gazed some time with great wonder and awe at this spectacle, picturing to their imaginations the scene which would ensue if the ropes from the lantern above, by which the staging was suspended, were to break and let the staging, the ladders, and the men all down to the pavement below.

Presently Rollo and Jane, on looking up, found that Mr. George and Mrs. Holiday were going back; so they made haste to follow them. On their way towards the door they met other parties coming in to see the whispering gallery. They themselves went out; and, following the directions of the guide, they began to ascend again, by various intricate and winding staircases, to higher parts of the building still. After ascending to the height of four or five stories more, the party came to another gallery, which was, however, outside of the church instead of within it. This outer gallery is called the stone gallery; it is so called to distinguish it from another outer gallery, still higher up, called the golden gallery. You can see the places of both these galleries by looking at the engraving, as they are both outside of the building. The stone gallery is below the dome. You can see the balustrade surrounding it, just above the head of the statue which stands on the pediment in the centre of the building. There is a row of columns above this gallery which supports an entablature above them, that forms the base of the dome.

As soon as the party came out into the open air they began to realize how high they had ascended; for they found, on looking down into the neighboring streets, that the tops of the chimneys of the six-story houses there were far below them. And yet, as you will see by looking at the engraving, they had not, thus far, ascended more than half way to the top of the building.

The party walked round the stone gallery, looking off over the roofs of the houses in the city on every side. They could see the river, the bridges, vast ranges of warehouses, and long streets, with tiny omnibuses and carts creeping slowly along them, and men, like mites, moving to and fro along the sidewalks. They could see tall chimneys, too, pouring forth columns of smoke, and steeples and spires of churches, far below them.

"How high we are!" said Rollo.

"Yes," said Mrs. Holiday; "I am high enough. I do not wish to go any higher."

In fact, it was somewhat frightful to be so high. It even made Mr. George dizzy to look down from so vast an elevation.

"Are we above, or below, the dome?" said Mrs. Holiday.

"We are above the inner dome," said Mr. George, "but below the outer one."

"I thought they were both the same," said Mrs. Holiday. "I thought the inner dome was the under side of the outer one."

"It ought to be," said Mr. George; "but it is not so in St. Paul's. There is a great space between, filled with masonry and carpentry."

Here Mr. George led the way up a flight of stone steps that ascended from the gallery to a door leading into the interior of the church again. When they had all entered they looked up and saw above and around them the commencement of a perfect maze of beams, piers, walls, buttresses, and braces, all blackened by the smoky London atmosphere, and worn and corroded by time. What was near of this immense complication was dimly seen by the faint light which made its way through the narrow openings which were left here and there in nooks and corners; but the rest was lost in regions of darkness and gloom, into which the eye strove in vain to penetrate.

This was the space between the inner and the outer dome. The walls which were seen were part of an immense cone of masonry which was built in the centre to sustain the whole structure. The lantern above, with the ball and cross surmounting it, rests on the top of this cone. The outer dome is formed around the sides of it without. This outer dome is made of wood; and the immense system of beams and braces which our party saw in the darkness around them were parts of the framework by which it is supported.

As our party came into this frightful-looking den of darkness and terror, they found themselves at the foot of a steep, but pretty broad and straight, flight of steps, that seemed to lead up into the midst of the obscure and gloomy maze, though the eye could follow it only for a short distance.

Mrs. Holiday hung back. She was evidently disinclined to go any farther.

"It is not worth while for us to go any farther is it?" said she, timidly.

"That is just as you please," said Mr. George. "It is rather frightful, I admit."

"Ah, yes, mother," said Rollo; "let us go up a little higher."

"No," said Jennie; "I don't want to go up any more. It frightens me."

Mrs. Holiday would have made great efforts to overcome her fears, out of regard to Rollo's wishes, if he had been there alone; but balanced between his desires to proceed and Jennie's fears, she seemed to be at a loss. She stood at the foot of the stairs, looking anxious and undecided.

Rollo began to go up the staircase.

"Take care, Rollo!" said his mother.

"There is no danger," said Rollo. "There is an excellent railing. I am only going up a little way to see how far these straight stairs go.

"I can see the top!" said he again, presently. "It is only a little way, and there is a good broad landing here. Come, Jennie! come up!"

"Would you go?" said Mrs. Holiday, looking to Mr. George.

"Yes," said Mr. George, "if you feel inclined. My rule always is, to allow the lady to do just as she pleases in going into places where she is afraid."

"I wish other gentlemen would always adopt that rule," said Mrs. Holiday.

"Do you think there is any danger?" asked Mrs. Holiday.

"No," said Mr. George; "I am sure there cannot be any danger. The way up here is as public as almost any part of London; and people are going up and coming down continually, and no accidents are ever heard of. In fact, we know that the authorities would not admit the public to such a place until they had first guarded it at every point, so as to make it perfectly safe."

"Then," said Rollo, who had stood all this time listening on the stairs, "why don't you advise mother to come right up?"

"Because," said Mr. George, "she might suffer a great deal from fear, though she might not meet with any actual harm, or even fall into any real danger. I don't wish to have her suffer, even from fear."

"We might go up to the top of this first flight," said Mrs. Holiday. "I believe I can see the top of it."

Mr. George found, on looking up, that he could distinctly see the landing at the top of this first flight of steps, his eyes having now become somewhat accustomed to the dim light of the place. He fully approved of the plan of going up this flight, and he offered Mrs. Holiday his arm to assist her in the ascent.

"No," said she; "I would rather that you would help Jennie. I will take hold of the baluster, if you will lead Jennie."

This arrangement was adopted, and the whole party soon reached the first landing in safety.

In making this ascent, Mrs. Holiday found her fears diminishing rather than increasing, which was owing partly to the fact that, as her eyes became accustomed to the place, she began to discern the objects around her; so she went timidly on, Mr. George preceding her, and encouraging her from time to time by cheering words, up a series of staircases, which twisted and turned by the most devious windings and zigzags, wherever there appeared to be the most convenient openings for them among the timbers and the masonry. The party stopped from time to time to rest. At every such halt Mrs. Holiday seemed half discouraged, and paused to consider anew the question, whether she should go on any farther, or return. Mr. George left her entirely at liberty every time to decide the question just as she pleased; and she always finally concluded to go on.

Thus they continued to ascend for more than a hundred feet above the stone gallery; and at length they came out upon another outside gallery, which is formed around the top of the dome, at the foot of what is called the lantern. You can see the place of this gallery in the engraving; though it is so high that the gallery itself, though surrounded by a massive balustrade, can scarcely be discerned. A person standing there would be wholly invisible. This is called the golden gallery. It receives that name from the fact that it is surrounded by a gilded balustrade.

Of course the view from this upper gallery was far more extended than the one below; but our party did not enjoy it much, it made them so giddy to look down; and although the gilded balustrade was extremely massive, and was built into the stonework in the firmest and most solid manner, Mrs. Holiday, and even Mr. George, were afraid to go near it; and the idea of leaning upon it, to look over, seemed perfectly frightful.

There were some young men in the gallery when our party came up. They were just preparing to continue their ascent, under the charge of a guide, up to the cupola. The guide seemed desirous of taking all who were going in one party. So he turned to Mr. George and said,—

"Do your party wish to go up into the ball?"

Mr. George looked towards Mrs. Holiday.

Mrs. Holiday was very unwilling to prevent Mr. George from ascending as high as he desired, but she was afraid to go up any farther herself, and she was unwilling to stay where she was with the children while he should be gone. It seemed as if the whole of the lofty mass on which she was standing was toppling, ready to fall, and that the first breath of wind that should come would blow it down, cupola, dome, and galleries, all together.

"How much farther is it to the top?" said she, timidly.

"A hundred feet," said the guide.

Mrs. Holiday looked more alarmed than ever.

"A hundred feet!" exclaimed Mr. George. "Why, I thought we were nearly at the top; and yet there are a hundred feet more! A hundred feet is equal to a house ten or twelve stories high!

"I don't know that it is worth while for us to go up any higher," continued Mr. George, speaking to Mrs. Holiday, "unless you wish it."

"No," said Mrs. Holiday; "I am sure I don't wish to go any higher."

"Very well," said Mr. George to the guide; "we will not go."

So the guide set out with the young men alone.

"There cannot be any pleasure in it, I am sure," said Mr. George.

"No," said Mrs. Holiday; "there is more pain than pleasure in coming up here!"

"Nor any advantage, that I can see," added Mr. George.

"Except to be able to say," continued Mrs. Holiday, "when we get back to America, that we have been up into the ball."

"Yes," said Mr. George; "and that, I think, is rather a doubtful advantage for a lady. The class of ladies that like to boast of having gone where other ladies seldom go are generally of rather a masculine character; and I don't think they gain a very desirable kind of reputation by performing such exploits."

Whether Mr. George was correct or not in this reasoning, it had the effect of relieving Mrs. Holiday very considerably of any feeling of disappointment she might have experienced in not having ascended to the highest accessible point in the building; and so, after pausing a few minutes in the golden gallery to take hurried glances at the surrounding views and to recover breath, the party went back to the inside of the building and commenced the descent. They stopped occasionally to sit down and rest on the benches which they found placed at convenient distances, in various nooks and corners, in the course of the descent. They encountered several other parties coming up; and sometimes they were passed by parties who were going down, and who went faster than they. One of these parties consisted of two young men. Mr. George asked them if they went up into the ball. They said they did. He asked them if the ascent was very steep and difficult.

"Yes," said one of the young men; "it made my limbs quake, I can assure you."

"Did you actually go into the ball?" said Mr. George.

"Yes," said the young man.

"How large is the space inside?" asked Rollo.

"Large enough to hold eight men," said he. "There were six in it when we were there, and there was room for two more."

If you turn to the engraving, and look at the ball under the cross as it is represented there, you will be surprised to think that it is large enough to contain eight men; but such is the fact. It is its immense height from the ground that makes it appear so small.

Rollo and Jennie began to count the steps as they came down, and they went on very patiently in this work until they got to between one hundred and sixty and one hundred and seventy; and here, in some way or other, they lost their reckoning, and so gave up the attempt. Rollo, however, afterwards found from his guide book that the whole number of steps from the ground to the ball was six hundred and sixteen.

The party at length reached the floor of the church again in safety. They then went down to see what was called the crypt, which they found to be nothing more nor less than a range of subterranean chambers, precisely like the cellars of a great house, only they were filled with tombs, and monuments, and old effigies of dead crusaders, some standing up and some lying down, some new and some old, some whole and others broken to pieces. The whole place was damp, chilly, and disagreeable; and the party were very glad to escape from it and to get back to the light of day.



CHAPTER XI.

THE ARISTOCRACY.

"What do you suppose that man is doing upon that ladder?" said Rollo to Mr. George.

Rollo and Mr. George were walking together in one of the streets at the West End, near St. James's Palace, when Rollo asked this question, on the morning of the day after they paid their visit to St. Paul's. The man on the ladder was placing some lamps on a frame over the door of a large and beautiful mansion, as if for an illumination. The lamps were disposed in such a manner as to form a great star, with the letters "V. R." on a very large scale, one on each side of it.

"The V. R. stands for Victoria Regina," said Mr. George; "that is, Victoria Queen."

"Then it must be that they are going to have an illumination in honor of the queen," rejoined Rollo. "I have seen two more of such frames putting up before this."

On going along a little farther, Rollo pointed out another house to Mr. George where lamps were arranged for an illumination; and then, presently, another. Mr. George accordingly stopped to ask a policeman what it meant.

"It is the queen's birthday," said the policeman; "and this evening they illuminate the houses."

"I'm glad of that," said Rollo. "We will come out and see; won't we, uncle George?"

The part of the town where Mr. George and Rollo were walking at this time—the vicinity of St. James's Square—is the region occupied by the palaces and mansions of some of the higher nobility of England. These residences are built in a very open manner, standing, many of them, apart from each other, and being in the midst of parks, gardens, terraces, and pleasure grounds, which give to the views that are presented to the eye of the stranger in walking among them a most enchanting variety. As Mr. George and Rollo passed along the streets among these residences, they soon began to observe other marks of excitement besides the illuminations. They saw unusual numbers of well-dressed people walking along the sidewalks; and at length, on turning a corner, they came suddenly into a street where the margin of the sidewalk, for a long distance, was lined with crowds of people,—men, women, and children,—who seemed to be waiting for something to pass by. They were, in fact, waiting to see the queen.

As has already been said, it was the queen's birthday; and it is the custom for the queen, on her birthday, to hold what is called "a drawing room," in which she receives the calls and congratulations of the nobility of England, the foreign ministers resident in London, and of such strangers as are of sufficient distinction, in respect to their wealth, their rank, or their fame, to entitle them to the honor of being presented to her majesty. The queen does not receive these visits in Buckingham Palace, which is the principal place of her residence in London, but in St. James's Palace, which is an older edifice, formerly the residence of the royal family, but now, since Buckingham Palace was built, reserved for official and state purposes and occasions. St. James's Palace is a large and irregularly-shaped building, of brick. It has nothing special to distinguish it from the other buildings that surround it, and which, in fact, some of them, seem to be so connected with it, by courts, and passages, and wings, and arcades, that it is difficult to tell where the palace begins or ends. In fact, no one would suppose that it was a palace at all were it not for the soldiers, in red uniforms, which are to be seen at all times walking to and fro, or standing sentry, before their little boxes, at every door and gateway.

Buckingham Palace, on the other hand, is farther out of town. It stands by itself, on the margin of one of the immense parks for which London is so famous—or, rather, on the margin of two of them. Before it is St. James's Park, with its green fields and its winding walks, its groves and copses of trees and shrubbery, its beds and borders of flowers, and above all its beautiful little lake, with gayly-painted boats to sail upon it, and flocks of ducks, and geese, and swans, of every form and color, swimming in all directions over the surface of the water. On the side of it is the Green Park—a broad expanse of the smoothest and richest green, intersected with drives and walks, all crowded with promenaders. Behind the palace is a large enclosure, which contains the private gardens of the palace itself. These gardens are planted and adorned in the most magnificent manner; but they are guarded on every side by a very high wall, and by a continuous line of trees, which bear a very dense and lofty mass of foliage, so that the public can never see what is in them.

Here the queen resides when she is in town, going only to the ancient palace of St. James to attend meetings of her cabinet council, to hold drawing rooms and levees, and to be present at other great ceremonies of state. Whenever occasions occur on which her majesty is expected to proceed from Buckingham Palace to St. James's, great numbers of people usually assemble in the streets between to see the royal procession pass by.

Mr. George, having learned by inquiry what it was that the people were waiting to see, determined that he and Rollo would wait too. So they took their places in a convenient position, near a lamppost, and waited for her majesty's coming.

They had not been there long before a great movement among the crowd indicated that the royal retinue was in sight; and a moment afterwards some horsemen, elegantly dressed and caparisoned, came rapidly on, followed by a train of two or three carriages very elegantly decorated, and with servants in splendid liveries before and behind, and finally by other horsemen, who brought up the rear. The whole cortege went by so rapidly that Rollo could scarcely distinguish any thing in detail. It passed before his eyes like a gorgeous vision, leaving on his mind only confused images of nodding plumes, beautiful horses, gay footmen and coachmen clothed in the gayest colors, and carriages plain and simple in style, but inexpressibly elegant and graceful in their forms and in their motions.

There was a moment's pause after the cortege went by, which was, however, broken at length by an exclamation of wonder and delight from Rollo.

"Hi—yi!" said he. "I should like to be the queen, uncle George!"

"Should you?" said Mr. George.

"Yes," said Rollo; "or else one of the queen's soldiers, to ride on such elegant horses as those."

As soon as the cortege had passed, the crowd began immediately to disperse; and yet they did not go away at once, but seemed to linger along the sidewalks to gaze at the various single carriages which from time to time were passing by. These carriages were all very elegant in form and equipment, and had servants in gay liveries mounted upon them before and behind, and they were often preceded and followed by outriders. These equipages, as they passed to and fro along the street, seemed strongly to attract the attention of the bystanders. The children, particularly, stopped to gaze upon each one of them, as it came by, with countenances full of wonder and admiration.

"There are a great many carriages out to-day," said Mr. George.

"And splendid carriages they are, too," said Rollo.

"Yes," said Mr. George; "the carriages and horses of the English aristocracy are the finest in the world."

Not very long after this, Mr. George and Rollo, in the course of their walk, happened to come to a place in the street that was opposite to the entrance to St. James's Palace, where the carriages set down the company that were going to attend the drawing room. There were a great many people assembled on the sidewalks all around to see the company as they descended from their carriages. The scene, in fact, presented quite an extraordinary spectacle.

The carriages, which were of every form and size, arrived in very rapid succession, and drove into a sort of court yard to the door where the company entered. There were soldiers and policemen on duty, to prevent the public from going into the yard. The carriages, however, as they drove up to the door, and the company, as they descended from them, could all be seen very distinctly from the street. There were footmen behind most of the carriages, who, as soon as the horses drew up, stepped down from their places and opened the carriage door. The gentlemen and ladies were all dressed very gorgeously,—the gentlemen being clothed in military uniforms, or robes of office, or in embroidered and gilded court dresses,—each dress being different, apparently, from all the rest. The liveries, too, of the coachmen and of the footmen, and the harnesses and trappings of the horses, were all exceedingly splendid and gay.

Mr. George and Rollo, with some hundreds of other spectators who had assembled to witness the scene, stood gazing upon it with great interest for nearly an hour. When, at length, their curiosity had become in some measure satisfied, they found that they were beginning to be very tired of standing so long; and so they left the place, and walked away slowly towards home.

"What do you mean by aristocracy?" said Rollo to Mr. George, as they walked along. "Does it mean the rich people?"

"No," replied Mr. George, "not exactly that. It means rich people who govern. In the United States there are a great many very rich people; but they are not called an aristocracy, because they do not govern. Every thing there is decided by voting, and every person that is a man has an equal right with all the rest to his vote; at least this is the case in the Northern States. The rich have no more power than the rest; so they do not constitute an aristocracy in the correct and proper meaning of the term. An aristocracy in any country, strictly speaking, is a class of wealthy people who govern it, or who are at least possessed of exclusive privileges and power."

"Suppose the class of people who govern the country should be poor," asked Rollo; "would that be an aristocracy?"

"Such a thing is impossible in the nature of things," said Mr. George; "for if any one class gets the control of the government of a country, they will of course manage it in such a way as to get the wealth and the honors mainly to themselves. I should do so. You would do so. Every body would do so. It is human nature. Beings that would not do so would not be human."

"And do the English aristocracy manage in that way?" asked Rollo.

"Yes," said Mr. George. "The state of the case, as I understand it, is just this: A number of centuries ago, a certain prince from France—or rather from Normandy, which is a part of France—came over to England with an army and conquered the country. His name was William; and on account of his conquest of England, he received the name of William the Conqueror. He parcelled out a great portion of the land, and all the offices and powers of government, among the nobles and generals that came with him; and they and their descendants have held the property and the power to the present day. Thus England, so far as the great mass of the people are concerned, is to be considered as a conquered country, and now in the possession of the conquerors. It is governed mainly by an aristocracy which descended from, and represents, the generals that conquered it. In fact, the highest honor which any man can claim for himself or his family in England is to say that his ancestors came in with the Conqueror. It is a sort of phrase."

"Yes," said Rollo; "I have heard it."

"You must understand, however," continued Mr. George, "that not all of the present aristocracy have descended from the old generals and nobles that came in with William. Many of those old families have become extinct, and their places have been supplied by new nobles that have been created from time to time by selection from the men that have most distinguished themselves as generals or statesmen. Still these men, however great they may be, never rise really to the same level of rank and consideration with the others. They are called the new nobility, and are always looked down upon, more or less, by the old families whose ancestors 'came in with the Conqueror.' Now, these nobles and their families, with persons connected with and dependent upon them, govern the land. They control nearly all the elections to Parliament, both in the Lords and in the Commons. They make peace and they make war. They officer the army and the navy. They, or persons whom they appoint, administer the affairs of the church and of the state, and expend the revenues, and they make the laws. In a word, they govern the country."

"And do they govern it well?" asked Rollo.

"Yes," said Mr. George; "admirably well—at least so far as preserving order and protecting life and property are concerned. I don't believe that there are any where else in the world, or ever were in any age, thirty millions of people together, who for a hundred years at a time enjoyed so much order, and peace, and general safety as has prevailed in England for the last century. Every thing is admirably regulated throughout all the ranks and departments of society, so far as these things are concerned."

"Then it succeeds very well," said Rollo.

"Yes," replied Mr. George, "so far as efficiency in the government, and order, safety, and peace in the community, are concerned, the plan certainly succeeds admirably well. But there is another very important point in which it seems to me it does not succeed at all."

"What is that?" asked Rollo.

"Why, in the division of the fruits of the labor," replied Mr. George.

"I don't know what you mean by that," said Rollo.

"Well, I will explain it," said Mr. George. "If we suppose that there are thirty millions of people in Great Britain——"

"Are there thirty millions?" said Rollo.

"Not quite, perhaps," said Mr. George; "but I will take thirty millions for my calculation. Now, out of thirty millions of people, including men, women, and children, of all ages, there will be, according to the usual proportion, about ten millions of men and women able to work, or to superintend work. There are undoubtedly that number now engaged in various industrial and useful occupations in England. Some are cultivating the land, raising wheat, or other kinds of food; some are rearing sheep or cattle; some are digging ore in the mines of Cornwall or Wales; some are raising coal and iron ore from the immense coal and iron mines in the northern part of the island; some are tending the mills and machine shops and manufactories where such vast quantities of goods are made; and some are planning or superintending these operations, or are performing professional services of various kinds. Now, if we suppose that the average earnings of all these people would be a dollar a day, that would make the amount ten millions a day in all, or three thousand millions of dollars a year, to be divided, in some way or other, among the English people."

"But the workmen in England don't earn a dollar a day, do they?" said Rollo.

"No," said Mr. George; "the laborers and the operatives do not earn so much as that, or at least they are not paid so much; but I have no doubt but that the whole amount produced would average that. In fact, I presume it would average more than that a great deal, and that the whole amount produced by the annual industry of England is a great deal more than three thousand millions of dollars."

"Well," said Rollo, "go on."

"I was going to explain to you, you remember, how government, by an aristocracy in England, operates in respect to the division of the fruits of labor among those who produce them. And the fact is, that it operates in such a manner as to give an immensely large proportion of the value to the aristocratic classes themselves, and an exceedingly small portion to the people who actually do the work.

"The difference is very great," continued Mr. George, "between England and the United States in this respect. Go out into the country in England, or into the manufacturing districts, and follow the people who do the work, when at night they go to their homes, and see what sort of houses they go to. They look picturesque and pretty, perhaps, outside, sometimes; but within they are mere hovels. The man receives only enough for his labor to feed and clothe him for his work. He becomes, therefore, a mere beast of burden, and his home is only a hut to feed and lodge him in.

"But now go to the United States and follow almost any man whom you see at work in the fields in Vermont or New Hampshire, when he goes to his home, and see what you will find. There will be a comfortable house, with several rooms. There will be a little parlor, with a carpet on the floor and books on the table. There will be children coming home from school, and a young woman, dressed like a lady, who has just finished her day's work, and is, perhaps, going in the evening into the village to attend a lecture. The reason of this difference is, as I suppose, that in England the laws and institutions, as the aristocracy have shaped them, are such as to give the men who do the hard work only their food and clothing and to reserve the rest, under the name of rent, or tithes, or taxes, to themselves and their relatives; whereas, in America, the laws and institutions, as the masses have shaped them, are such as to give the men who do the work a very much larger share of the proceeds of it, so that they can themselves enjoy the comforts and luxuries of life, and can cultivate their minds and educate their children. Thus, in England, you have, on every considerable tract of farming country, villages of laborers, which consist of mere huts, where men live all their lives, without change, almost as beasts of burden; and then, in some beautiful park in the centre, you have a nobleman, who lives in the highest degree of luxury and splendor, monopolizing as it were, in his one castle or hall, the comforts and enjoyments which have been earned by the hundreds of laborers. In America, on the other hand, there is no castle or hall—there is no nobleman; but the profits of the labor are retained by those who perform it, and they are expended in making hundreds of comfortable and well-provided homes."

While Mr. George and Rollo had been holding this conversation, they had been walking along through St. James's Park; and, considering the abstract and unentertaining character of the subject, Rollo had listened quite attentively to what his uncle had said, only his attention had been somewhat distracted once or twice by the gambols of the beautifully irised ducks that he had seen from time to time on the water as he walked along the margin of it. The conversation was now, however, interrupted by the sound of a trumpet which Rollo heard at a distance, and which he saw, on looking up, proceeded from a troop of horsemen coming out from the Horse Guards. Rollo immediately wished to go that way and see them, and Mr. George consented. As they went along, Mr. George closed his conversation on the English aristocracy by saying,—

"England is a delightful country for noblemen, no doubt, and an aristocratic government will always work very well indeed for the interests of the aristocracy themselves who exercise it, and for the good order and safety, perhaps, of the rest of the community. A great many weak and empty-headed women who come out to England from the great cities in America, and see these grand equipages in London, think what a fine thing it is to have a royal government, and wish that we had one in America; but this is always on the understanding that they themselves are to be the duchesses."

* * * * *

Mr. George was doubtless substantially correct in his explanation of the opinion which many fashionable ladies in America are led to form in favor of our aristocratic form of government from what they see of the pomp and parade of the English nobility; though, in characterizing such ladies as weak and empty headed women, he was, to say the least, rather severe. In respect to the other question,—that is, how far the immense inequality of the division of the annual production of the Island of Great Britain among the people who produce it, and the consequent extreme poverty of so large a portion of the working classes, is owing to the laws and institutions which the aristocracy themselves have formed,—that is a very grave one. Mr. George thought that it was owing to those laws and institutions, and not to any thing in the natural or physical condition of the country itself, that there was so much abject poverty in Great Britain.

"The soil is as fertile," said he to himself, "the mines are as rich, the machinery is as effective, and there is as much profitable work to be done in England as in America, and I see no reason why the whole amount of value produced in proportion to the producers should not be as great in one country as in the other. Consequently, if some classes obtain more than their share, and others less, the inequality must be the effect of the institutions and laws."



CHAPTER XII

A MISFORTUNE.

The queen's birthday proved to be an unfortunate day for Rollo, for he met with quite a serious misfortune in the evening while he and Mr. George were out looking at the illuminations. The case was this:—

Rollo had formed a plan for going with Mr. George in the evening to the hotel where his father and mother were lodging, to get Jennie to go out with them to see the illuminations. They had learned from their landlady that the best place to see them was along a certain street called Pall Mall, where there were a great many club houses and other public buildings, which were usually illuminated in a very brilliant manner.[F]

[F] These club houses are very large and splendid mansions belonging to associations of gentlemen called clubs. Some of the clubs contain more than a thousand members. The houses are fitted up in the most luxurious manner, with reading rooms, libraries, dining rooms, apartments for conversation, and for all sorts of games, and every thing else requisite to make them agreeable places of resort for the members. The annual expenditure in many of them is from thirty to fifty thousand dollars.

It was after eight o'clock when Mr. George and Rollo went out; and as soon as they came into the street at Trafalgar Square, they saw all around them the indications of an extraordinary and general excitement. The streets were full of people; and in every direction, and at different distances from them, they could see lights gleaming in the air, over the roofs of the houses, or shining brightly upon the heads of the crowd in the street below, in some open space, or at some prominent and conspicuous corner. The current seemed to be setting to the west, towards the region of the club houses and palaces. The lights were more brilliant, too, in that direction. So Rollo, taking hold of his uncle's hand and hurrying him along, said,—

"Come, uncle George! This is the way! They are all lighted up! See!"

For a moment Rollo forgot his cousin Jennie; though the direction in which he was going led, in fact, towards the hotel where she was.

The sidewalk soon became so full that it was impossible to go on any faster than the crowd itself was advancing; and at length, when Mr. George and Rollo got fairly into Pall Mall, and were in the midst of a great blaze of illuminations, which were shining with intense splendor all around them, they were for a moment, in passing round a corner, completely wedged up by the crowd, so that they could scarcely move hand or foot. In this jam Rollo felt a pressure upon his side near the region of his pocket, which reminded him of his purse; and it immediately occurred to him that it was not quite safe to have money about his person in such a crowd, and that it would be better to give it to his uncle George to keep for him until he should get home.

So he put his hand into his pantaloons pocket to take out his purse; but, to his great dismay, he found that it was gone.

"Uncle George!" said he, in a tone of great consternation, "I have lost my wallet!"

"Are you sure?" said Mr. George, quietly.

Mr. George knew very well that four times out of five, when people think they have lost a purse, or a ring, or a pin, or any other valuable, it proves to be a false alarm.

Rollo, without answering his uncle's question, immediately began to feel in all his other pockets as well as he could in the crowd which surrounded him and pressed upon him so closely. His wallet was nowhere to be found.

"How much was there in it?" asked Mr. George.

"Two pounds and two pennies," said Rollo, "and your due bill for four shillings."

"Are you sure you did not leave it at home?" asked Mr. George.

"Yes," said Rollo. "I have not taken it out since this morning. I looked it over this morning and saw all the money, and I have not had it out since."

"Some people think they are sure when they are not," said Mr. George. "I think you will find it when you go home."

Rollo was then anxious to go home at once and ascertain if his purse was there. All his interest in seeing the illumination was entirely gone. Mr. George made no objection to this; and so, turning off into a side street in order to escape from the crowd, they directed their steps, somewhat hurriedly, towards their lodgings.

"I know we shall not find it there," said Rollo, "for I am sure I had it in my pocket."

"It is possible that we may find it," said Mr. George. "Boys deceive themselves very often about being sure of things. It is one of the most difficult things in the world to know when we are sure. You may have left it in your other pocket, or put it in your trunk, or in some drawer."

"No," said Rollo; "I am sure I put it in this pocket. Besides, I think I felt the robber's hand when he took it. I felt something there, at any rate; and that reminded me of my purse; and I thought it would be best for me to give it to you. But when I went to feel for it, it was gone."

Mr. George had strong hopes, notwithstanding what Rollo said, that the purse would be found at home; but these hopes were destined to be disappointed. They searched every where when they got home; but the purse was nowhere to be found. They looked in the drawers, in the pockets of other clothes, in the trunk, and all about the rooms. Mr. George was at length obliged to give it up, and to admit that the money was really gone.



CHAPTER XIII.

PHILOSOPHY.

Mr. George and Rollo held a long conversation on the subject of the lost money while they were at breakfast the morning after the robbery occurred, in the course of which Mr. George taught our hero a good deal of philosophy in respect to the proper mode of bearing such losses.

Before this conversation, however, Rollo's mind had been somewhat exercised, while he was dressing himself in his own room, with the question, whether or not his father would make up this loss to him, as one occasioned by an accident. You will recollect that the arrangement which Mr. Holiday had made with Mr. George was, that he was to pay Rollo a certain sum for travelling expenses, and that Rollo was to have all that he could save of this amount for spending money. Rollo was to pay all his expenses of every kind out of his allowance, except that, in case of any accident, the extra expense which the occurrence of the accident should occasion was to be reimbursed to him by his father—or rather by Mr. George, on his father's account.

Now, while Rollo was dressing himself on the morning after his loss, the question arose to his mind, whether this was to be considered as an accident in the sense referred to in the above-named arrangement. He concluded that Mr. George thought it was not.

"Because," said he to himself, "if he had thought that this was a loss which was to come upon father, and not upon me, he would have told me so last night."

When the breakfast had been brought up, and our two travellers were seated at the table eating it, Rollo introduced the conversation by expressing his regret that he had not bought the gold watch chain that he had seen in the Strand.

"How unlucky it was," said he, "that I did not buy that chain, instead of saving the money to have it stolen away from me! I am so sorry that I did not buy it!"

"No," replied Mr. George, "you ought not to be sorry at all. You decided to postpone buying it for good and sufficient reasons of a prudential character. It was very wise for you to decide as you did; and now you ought not to regret it. To wish that you had been guilty of an act of folly, in order to have saved a sovereign by it, is to put gold before wisdom. But Solomon says, you know, that wisdom is better than gold; yea, than much fine gold."

Rollo laughed.

"Well," said Rollo, "at any rate, I have learned one lesson from it."

"What lesson is that?" said Mr. George.

"Why, to be more careful after this about my money."

"No," replied Mr. George, "I don't think that you have that lesson to learn. I think you are careful enough now, not only of your money, but of all your other property. Indeed, I think you are a very careful boy; and any greater degree of care and concern than you usually exercise about your things would be excessive. The fact is, that in all the pursuits and occupations of life we are exposed to accidents, misfortunes, and losses. The most extreme and constant solicitude and care will never prevent such losses, but will only prevent our enjoying what we do not lose. It is as foolish, therefore, to be too careful as it is not to be careful enough.

"Indeed," continued Mr. George, "I think the best way is for travellers to do as merchants do. They know that it is inevitable that they should meet with some losses in their business; and so they make a regular allowance for losses in all their calculations."

"How much do they allow?" said Rollo.

"I believe it is usually about five per cent.," said Mr. George. "They calculate that, for every one hundred dollars that they trust out in business, they must lose five. Sometimes small losses come along quite frequently. At other times there will be a long period without any loss, and then some great one will occur; so that, in one way or the other, they are pretty sure in the long run to lose about their regular average. So they make their calculations accordingly; and when the losses come they consider them matters of course, like any of their ordinary expenses."

"That is a good plan," said Rollo.

"I think it is eminently a good plan," said Mr. George, "for travellers. In planning a journey, we ought always to include this item in our calculations. We ought to allow so much for conveyance, so much for hotel bills, and so much for losses, and then calculate on the losses just as much as we do on the payment of the railroad fares and hotel bills. That is the philosophy of it.

"However," continued Mr. George, "though we ought not to allow any loss that we may meet with to make us anxious or over-careful afterwards, still we may sometimes learn something by it. For instance, I think it is generally not best to take a watch, or money, or any thing else of special value in our pockets when we go out among a crowd."

"Yes," said Rollo; "if I had only thought to have put my purse in my trunk when I went out, it would have been safe."

"No," replied Mr. George; "it would not have been safe—that is, not perfectly safe—even then; for a thief might have crept into the house, and gone into your room, and opened the lock, and got out the money while you were away."

"But the front door is kept locked," said Rollo.

"True," said Mr. George; "that is a general rule, I know; but it might have been left open a few minutes by accident, so that the thief could get in—such things do happen very frequently; or one of the servants of the house might have got the trunk open. So that the money is not absolutely safe if you leave it in the trunk. In fact, I think that in all ordinary cases it is safer for me to carry my money in my pocket than to leave it in my trunk in my room. It is only when we are going among crowds that it is safer to leave it in our rooms; but there is no absolute and perfect safety for it any where."

"I don't see," said Rollo, "how they can possibly get the money out so from a deep pocket without our knowing it."

"It is very strange," said Mr. George; "but I believe the London pickpockets are the most skilful in the world. Sometimes they go in gangs, and they contrive to make a special pressure in the crowd, in a narrow passage, or at a corner, and then some of them jam against the gentleman they are going to rob, pretending that they are jammed by others behind them, and thus push and squeeze him so hard on every side that he does not feel any little touch about his pocket; or, by the time he does feel and notice it, the purse is gone."

"Yes," said Rollo, "that is exactly the way it was with me.

"But there is one thing I could have done," said Rollo. "If I had put my purse in my inside jacket pocket, and buttoned up the jacket tight, then they could not possibly have got it."

"Yes," said Mr. George, "they have a way of cutting through the cloth with the little sharp point of the knife which they have in a ring on one of their fingers. With this they can cut through the cloth any where if they feel a purse underneath, and take it out without your knowing any thing about it till you get home."

"I declare!" said Rollo. "Then I don't see what I could do."

"No," replied Mr. George, "there is nothing that we can do to guard absolutely against the possibility of losing our property when we are travelling—or in any other case, in fact. There is a certain degree of risk that we must incur, and various losses in one way or another will come. All we have to do is to exercise the right degree of precaution, neither too much nor too little, and then submit good naturedly to whatever comes."

* * * * *

This is the end of the story of Rollo's being robbed, except that, the next morning after the conversation above described was held, Rollo found on his table, when he got up and began to dress himself, a small package folded up in paper, with a little note by the side of it. He opened the note and read as follows:—

DEAR ROLLO: From the moment that your loss was ascertained, I determined that I would refund the amount to you, under the authority which I received from your father to pay all expenses which you might incur through unexpected casualties. This robbery I consider as coming under that head; and so I refund you the amount, and have charged it to your father.

I did not tell you what my design was in this respect at once, because I thought I would see how you would bear the loss on the supposition that it was to be your own. I also wished to avail myself of the opportunity to teach you a little of the philosophy of the subject. And now, inasmuch as, in learning the lesson, you have shown yourself an excellent pupil, and as you also evince a disposition to bear the loss like a man, there is no longer any reason for postponement; and so I replace the amount that was taken from you by a little package which accompanies this note.

Your affectionate uncle,

G. H.



On opening the package, which was lying on the table by the side of his note, Rollo found within a new wallet very much like the one which he had lost; and in this wallet were two sovereigns, two pennies, and a new due bill from his uncle George for four shillings.



CHAPTER XIV.

THE DOCKS.

One day Mr. George told Rollo that before leaving London he wished very much to go and see the London docks and the shipping in them.

"Well," said Rollo, "I'll go. But what are the docks?"

It may seem surprising that Rollo should be so ready to go and see the docks before he knew at all what they were. The truth is, what attracted him was the word shipping. Like other boys of his age, he was always ready to go, no matter where, to see ships, or any thing connected with shipping.

So he first said he was ready to go and see the docks, and then he asked what they were.

"They are immense basins," said Mr. George, "excavated in the heart of the city, for ships to go into when they are loading or unloading."

"I thought the ships staid in the river," said Rollo.

"Part of them," said Mr. George; "but not all. There is not room for all of them in the river; at least there is not room for them at the wharves, along the banks of the river, to load and reload. Accordingly, about fifty years ago, the merchants of London began to form companies for the purpose of excavating docks for them. The place that they chose for the docks was at a little distance from the river, below the city. Their plan was to build sheds and warehouses around the docks, so as to have conveniences for loading and unloading their ships close at hand.

"And I want to go and see some of these docks," added he, in conclusion.

"So do I," said Rollo. "Let us go this very day."

Although Rollo was thus ready, and even eager, to go with his uncle to see the docks, the interest which he felt in them was entirely different from that which his uncle experienced. Mr. George knew something about the construction of the works and the history of them, and he had a far more distinct idea of the immense commerce which centred in them, and of the influence of this commerce on the general welfare of mankind and on the wealth and prosperity of London, than Rollo could be expected to have. He accordingly wished to see them, in order to enjoy the emotions of grandeur and sublimity which would be awakened in his mind by the thought of their prodigious magnitude as works of artificial construction, and of the widely-extended relation they sustained to the human race, by continually sending out ships to the remote regions of the globe, and receiving cargoes in return from every nation and every clime.

Rollo, on the other hand, thought little of these grand ideas. All that he was interested in was the expectation of seeing the ships and the sailors, and of amusing himself with the scenes and incidents which he hoped to witness in walking along the platforms, and watching the processes of loading and unloading the ships, or of moving them from one place to another in the crowded basins.

Rollo was not disappointed, when he came to visit the docks, in respect to the interesting and amusing incidents that he expected to see there. He saw a great many such incidents, and one which occurred was quite an uncommon one. A little girl fell from the pier head into the water. The people all ran to the spot, expecting that she would be drowned; but, fortunately, the place where she fell in was near a flight of stone steps, which led down to the water. The people crowded down in great numbers to the steps, to help the child out. The occurrence took place just as the men from the docks were going home to dinner; and so it happened that there was an unusually large number of people near at the time of the accident.



The place from which the child fell was the corner of the pier head, in the foreground of the picture, where you see the post, just beyond the stone steps.

There is a boat pulling off from the vessel to the rescue of the little girl in the foreground, to the left; but its assistance will not be required.

Now, Rollo's chief interest in going to see the docks was the anticipation of witnessing scenes and incidents of this and other kinds; but Mr. George expected to be most interested in the docks themselves.

The construction of the docks was indeed a work of immense magnitude, and the contrivers of the plan found that there were very great difficulties to be surmounted before it could be carried into effect. It was necessary, of course, that the place to be selected should be pretty low land, and near the river; for if the land was high, the work of excavating the basins would have been so much increased as to render the undertaking impracticable. It was found on examination that all the land that was near the river, and also near the city, and that was in other respects suitable for the purpose, was already occupied with streets and houses. These houses, of course, had all to be bought and demolished, and the materials of them removed entirely from the ground, before the excavations could be begun.

Then, too, some very solid and substantial barrier was required to be constructed between the excavated basins made and the bank of the river, to prevent the water of the river from bursting in upon the workmen while they were digging. In such a case as this they make what is called a coffer dam, which is a sort of dam, or dike, made by driving piles close together into the ground, in two rows, at a little distance apart, and then filling up the space between them with earth and gravel. By this means the water of the river can be kept out until the digging of the basins is completed.

The first set of docks that was made was called the West India Docks. They were made about the year 1800. Very soon afterwards several others were commenced; and now there are five. The following table gives the names of them, with the number of acres enclosed within the walls of each:—

NAMES. ACRES. West India Docks, 295 East India Docks, 32 St. Catharine's Docks, 24 London Docks, 90 Commercial Docks, 49

If you wish to form a definite idea of the size of these docks, you must fix your mind upon some pretty large field near where you live, if you live in the country, and ask your father, or some other man that knows, how many acres there are in it. Then you can compare the field with some one or other of the docks according to the number of acres assigned to it in the above table.

If you live in the city, you must ask the number of acres in some public square. Boston Common contains forty-eight acres.

St. Catharine's Docks contain only twenty-four acres; and yet more than a thousand houses were pulled down to clear away a place for them, and about eleven thousand persons were compelled to remove.

Most of the docks are now entirely surrounded by the streets and houses of the city; so that there is nothing to indicate your approach to them except that you sometimes get glimpses of the masts of the ships rising above the buildings at the end of a street. The docks themselves, and all the platforms and warehouses that pertain to them, are surrounded by a very thick and high wall; so that there is no way of getting in except by passing through great gateways which are made for the purpose on the different sides. These gateways are closed at night.

Mr. George and Rollo, when the time arrived for visiting the docks, held a consultation together in respect to the mode of going to them from their lodgings at the West End.

Of course the docks, being below the city, were in exactly the opposite direction from where they lived—Northumberland Court. The distance was three or four miles.

"We can go by water," said Mr. George, "on the river, or we can take a cab."

"Or we can go in an omnibus," said Rollo. "Yes, uncle George," he added eagerly, "let us go on the top of an omnibus."

Mr. George was at first a little disinclined to adopt this plan; but Rollo seemed very earnest about it, and finally he consented.

"We can get up very easily," said he; "and when we are up there we can see every thing."

"I am not concerned about our getting up," said Mr. George. "The difficulty is in getting down."

However, Mr. George finally consented to Rollo's proposal; and so, going out into the Strand, they both mounted on the top of an omnibus, and in this way they rode down the Strand and through the heart of London. They were obliged to proceed slowly, so great was the throng of carts, wagons, drays, cabs, coaches, and carriages that encumbered the streets. In about an hour, however, they were set down a little beyond the Tower.

"Now," said Mr. George, "the question is, whether I can find the way to the dock gates."

"Have you got a ticket?" asked Rollo.

"No," said Mr. George; "I presume a ticket is not necessary."

"I presume it is necessary," said Rollo. "You never can go any where, or get into any thing, in London, without a ticket."

"Well," said Mr. George, "we will see. At any rate, if tickets are required, there must be some way of getting them at the gate."

Mr. George very soon found his way to the entrance of the docks. It was at the end of a short street, the name and position of which he had studied out on the map before leaving home. He took care to be set down by the omnibus near this street; and by this means he found his way very easily to his place of destination.

The entrance was by a great gateway. The gateway was wide open, and trains of carts, and crowds of men,—mechanics, laborers, merchants, clerks, and seamen,—were going and coming through it.

"We need not have concerned ourselves about a ticket," said Mr. George.

"No," said Rollo. "I see."

"The entrance is as public as any street in London," said Mr. George.

So saying, our two travellers walked on and passed within the enclosures.

As soon as they were fairly in, they stopped at the corner of a sort of sidewalk and looked around. The view which was presented to their eyes formed a most extraordinary spectacle. Forests of masts extended in every direction. Near them rose the hulls of great ships, with men going up and down the long plank stairways which led to the decks of them. Here and there were extended long platforms bordering the docks, with immense piles of boxes, barrels, bales, cotton and coffee bags, bars of iron, pigs of lead, and every other species of merchandise heaped up upon them. Carts and drays were going and coming, loaded with goods taken from these piles; while on the other hand the piles themselves were receiving continual additions from the ships, through the new supplies which the seamen and laborers were hoisting out from the hatchways.

Here and there, too, the smoke and the puffing vapor of a steamer were seen, and the clangor of ponderous machinery was heard, giving dignity, as it were, to the bustle.

"So, then, these are the famous London Docks," said Mr. George.

"What a place!" said Rollo.

"I had no idea of the vast extent and magnitude of the works," said Mr. George.

"How many different kinds of flags there are at the masts of the vessels, uncle George!" said Rollo. "Look!"

"What a monstrous work it must have been," said Mr. George, "the digging out by hand of all these immense basins!"

"What did they do with the mud?" asked Rollo.

"They loaded it into scows," said Mr. George, "and floated it off, up or down the river, wherever there were any low places that required to be filled up.

"When, at length, the excavations were finished," continued Mr. George, "they began at the bottom, and laid foundations deep and strong, and then built up very thick and solid walls all along the sides of the basins, up to the level of the top of the ground, and then made streets and quays along the margin, and built the sheds and warehouses, and the work was done."

"But then, how could they get the ships in?" asked Rollo.

"Ah, yes," said Mr. George; "I forgot about that. It was necessary to have passage ways leading in from the river, with walls and gates, and with drawbridges over them."

"What do they want the drawbridges for?" asked Rollo.

"So that the people that are at work there can go across," said Mr. George. "The people who live along the bank of the river, between the basin and the bank, would of course have occasion to pass to and fro, and they must have a bridge across the outlet of the docks. But then, this bridge, if it were permanent, would be in the way of the ships in passing in and out; and so it must be made a drawbridge.

"Then, besides," continued Mr. George, "they need drawbridges across the passage ways within the docks; for the workmen have to go back and forth continually, in prosecuting the work of loading and unloading the ships and in warping them in and out."

"Yes," said Rollo. "There is a vessel that they are warping in now."

Rollo understood very well what was meant by warping; but as many of the readers of this book may live far from the sea, or may, from other causes, have not had opportunities to learn much about the manoeuvring of ships, I ought to explain that this term denotes a mode of moving vessels for short distances by means of a line, either rope or cable, which is fastened at one end outside the ship, and then is drawn in at the other by the sailors on board. When this operation is performed in a dock, for example, one end of the line is carried forward some little distance towards the direction in which they wish the vessel to go, and is made fast there to a pile, or ring, or post, or some other suitable fixture on the quay, or on board another vessel. The other end of the line, which has remained all the time on board the ship, is now attached to the capstan or the windlass, and the line is drawn in. By this means the vessel is pulled ahead.

Vessels are sometimes warped for short distances up a river, when the wind and current are both against her, so that she cannot proceed in any other way. In this case the outer end of the line is often fastened to a tree.

In the arctic seas a ship is often warped through loose ice, or along narrow and crooked channels of open water, by means of posts set in the larger and more solid floes. When she is drawn up pretty near to one of these posts, the line is taken off and carried forward to another post, which the sailors have, in the mean time, been getting ready upon another floe farther ahead.