Note (return) — THE COSMOPOLITE.

Go you to the theatre in what is called a wet season, and perhaps after sitting through a dull five-act tragedy and two farces, your first solicitude is about the weather, and as if to increase the vexation, you cannot see the sky for a heavy portico or blind; then the ominous cry of "carriage, your honour"—"what terrible event does this portend"—and you have to pick your way, with your wife like Cinderella after the ball, through an avenue of link-boys and cadmen,5 and hear your name and address bawled out to all the thieves that happen to be present. Or, perchance, the coachman, whose inside porosity is well indicated by his bundle of coats, as Dr. Kitchiner says, is labouring under "the unwholesome effervescence of the hot and rebellious liquors which have been taken to revive the flagging spirits," and like a sponge, absorbs liquids, owing to the pressure of the surrounding air.