Mem.—This need not be done, as lately decided,
If blinds for the windows have not been provided.'
"But," he went on, "the deadliest injury those infernal officials reserved for the last. If you read the concluding sentence, Sir, you will observe that it begins: 'The blinds may be lifted in case of necessity!' (That, I need hardly say, is entirely my own. There is a sort of inspired swing in it, the true lyrical lilt with which even red-tape has not dared to tamper! But mark how they go on): 'when the train is at a standstill at a station, but, if lifted, they must be lowered again before the train starts.' And this insufferable bathos, forsooth, was substituted for lines like these:—
"'The blinds may be lifted in case of necessity;
Thus, if the train at a station should halt,
And the traveller hears not its name, nor can guess it, he
Cannot be held to commit any fault,
Still farther be fined,
Should he pull up the blind
Out of mere curiosity: had he not looked