CHAPTER III. THE PRESENT, SO CALLED, CONTINUED FROM LOSING my consciousness on the one hand, I was clearly conscious on the other of a painful bump upon my nose. This was followed and accompanied by the sensation of hartshorn sending effluvia up my nostrils; and then by a dim light in a square parlour smelling of tobacco, and disclosing the close adjoining figure of a young fellow who had a hartshorn-bottle in his hand. "Is this the Farthing-Pie House?" said I. "To be sure, sir," said he; "how do you feel yourself?" "As a man is likely to feel," said I, "that gets a knock in the dark; but where is my revolver?" "All's right," he cried; your revolver fell out of your pocket, and for fear of mischief I put it out of people's reach. You tumbled down yourself, sir, just now; and as you seemed to be made insensible by the knock, I ran for mistress's smelling-bottle which she keeps on the mantelpiece in the bar: it is there I put your revolver, which I'll fetch for you." He was absent an instant, and then came and laid it on the table before me. I put my hand into my pocket to find a shilling for him, and drawing out all my money, I found it to consist of two sovereigns and nineteen shillings in silver, not one of which had on it the impress of Queen Anne, or George the First, or even of George the Second. I was puzzled, and like other puzzled people I put my hand up to scratch my head, when I found my pigtail was gone. Then, as I had felt relieved from the tightness of my nether garment, I looked down to see the cause, when, not only was it visibly more loose about the parts it professedly undertakes to cover, but, instead of stopping short just below the knees, it went on downwards till it reached the coverings of my feet, and these were not high shoes buckled by a silver clasp, but what are vulgarly called Blucher boots. Wondering at these unexpected circumstances, and trying to comprehend them, I said, "Will, what's the day of the week?" "Charles, sir, is my name, and the day of the week is still Tuesday; but if you don't go very soon, which I beg you to do, it will be Wednesday. I didn't like to disturb you, sir, but the other gentlemen have been gone more than an hour, master and mistress are gone to bed, and I must now let you out and lock the door." "Well, but tell me, WillCharles I mean what day of the month it is." "The seventh of October, sir." "And what century?" Century, sir? I don't know what you mean.' "Then, plainly, is this the eighteenth or the nineteenth century?" "In course, sir, the eighteenth; that's as we always write it." "The eighteenth, you say: I thought so. And how do they get on with the new road here? do you think the workmen will soon have done?" "Done, sir? no, they will never have 66 done; for no sooner do they mend in one place than they are called to another: and who can wonder, seeing what traffic of omnibuses there is upon it?" "Omnibus traffic in the middle of the eighteenth century! Why, how long is it in your calculation that omnibuses have run on this road?" "I should say, sir, as far back as ever can be; I know they have run as long as I can remember, and I am nineteen years old. But please, sir, I must lock up the house." "Do you mean to say, then, you were born in the eighteenth century?" In course, sir, I was if I was born in the year eighteen hundred and thirty-seven.” Speaking thus, he led me to the door, which he locked as soon as I had made my exit. I then looked round, and found myself in the New Road, with Trinity Church opposite to me visible dimly by the gaslight, and the last omnibus running toward Paddington. All my faculties were in a state of extreme perplexity, including not only the formative categories of the understanding, but the six ideas of the pure reason. Nevertheless I contrived to find my way by Park Crescent and Portland Place to Duchess Street, and thence to my dwelling in Queen Anne Street. Knocking at my private door, I was let in, after a considerable time, by Mrs. Nurse, who looked ex-. tremely cross. I asked after my wife and babe, and was told that both of them were asleep and going on quite as well as could be expected. "It is a pity," muttered she, "when a gentleman's wife is confined, that he does not keep good hours-nay, it is rather suspicious." I uttered some excuses, but they had no effect on her ill humour. I would fain have had some refreshment, for the reader will remember how early the dinner was at the Dutch Doll; and as to the supper at the Marylebone Gardens, I lost my half-consciousness before I rejoined the friends that were there waiting for me. But supperless as I was, I saw nothing that promised refreshment in the looks of Mrs. Nurse; and I crept up to my cheerless little bed-room in the attic with my brains full of thought, and my stomach quite empty. Still, seeing that I had been awake so long a time under the excitement of most extraordinary scenes, it was to be expected that the consequent fatigue and languor would send me quickly to sleep. But it was not so. I lay awake till almost breakfast-time, pondering on the wonderful facts—I do not say of the past, for I admit of no such distinction-but the wonderful facts of my individual existence in the eighteenth as in the nineteenth century; and how was I sure that evidence might not arise of my existence in the twentieth century? Phenomena may vary, but the eternal Nowmenon is ever the same. Getting up next day, which stood in the almanac as the 8th of October, 1856, and going down stairs, I found the breakfast cleared away, everybody engaged, and my wants not likely to be supplied by a single soul on my own premises. So, after seeing my wife and babe, I went to my sister's in the Edgeware Road, and there I soon found all the accommodation I needed. But in spite of Julia's kindness, symptoms of fever grew upon me as the day advanced. I had felt, at the time, that the atmosphere of the Marylebone Gardens was unwholesome. I had caught cold from blasts of air that came round my head while listening to those abominable songs; and I was predisposed to this effect by having had to encounter, in my morning's walk, the unwholesome miasmata of the Fleet ditch, and other parts of London where stagnant water abounded. I struggled, however, against these symptoms, till Jack came home after all the heavy business of the day was over both at my house and his own, and then we sat down to dinner, and when it was finished, we lighted our cigars and began our chat. Full charged as I was with all that had taken place since I last saw my brother-in-law, it will easily be imagined that I expected to astonish him by my revelations. But Jack is a very provoking listener. When I accounted philosophically for the sights I had witnessed, he laughed at me outright; but to my narrative of the things I had seen, and the impression they made on me, he lent a steady attention. As soon as I had concluded, our conversation thus proceeded : "And so, Franz, you persuade yourself you have had a day's experience of what your life would be, if, instead of being born in this century, you had been born at a correspondent time in the last, under circumstances no otherwise different than the different point of time necessitated. Now, let me ask you,-would you like to be the Franz of that day, in other words, to be your great-grandfather, or remain Franz as you are?' 66 Well, but why? Let us see in what respects you are the gainer. His circumstances were relatively as prosperous as yours, seeing that you are both brush |