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'THE PRINCESS EGERIA'.
London, say what we will of it, is after all the head of the British giant, and if not the liveliest in bubbles, it is past competition the largest broth-pot of brains anywhere simmering on the hob: over the steadiest of furnaces too.

And the oceans and the continents, as you know, are perpetual and copious contributors, either to the heating apparatus or to the contents of the pot.

Let grander similes besought.
This one fits for the smoky receptacle cherishing millions, magnetic to tens of millions more, with its caked outside of grime, and the inward substance incessantly kicking the lid, prankish, but never casting it off.

A good stew, you perceive; not a parlous boiling.