ught of them in connection with London, any more than with
Nottingham or Durham.

The houses were much more picturesque than those of modern build. There
was no attempt at uniformity. Each man set his house down as it suited
him, and some thatches turned to the east and west, while others fronted
north and south. There were few chimneys, except in the larger houses,
and no shop windows; a large wooden shutter fixed below the window
covered it at night, and in the day it was let down to hang, tablewise,
as a counter whereon the goods sold by the owner were displayed.

The Strand was one of the few chief streets where various trades
congregated together. Usually every street had its special calling, and
every trade its own particular street. Some of the latter retain their
significant names even yet--Hosier Lane, Cordwainer Street, Bread
Street, Soper's Lane, the Poultry, Silver Street, Ironmonger's Lane, and
Paternoster Row, in which last lived the text-writers and rosary-makers.
The mercers lived mainly in Cheapside, the drapers in Lombard Street
(they were mostly Italians, as the name shows), the furriers in Saint
Mary Axe, the fishmongers in Knightriders' Street, the brewers by the
Thames, the butchers in Eastcheap, and the goldsmiths in Guthrum's (now
Gutter) Lane.

But it is time to inquire what kind of patties were inviting the
passer-by on Mr Altham's counter. They were a very large variety:
oyster, crab, lobster, anchovy, and all kinds of fish; sausage-rolls,
jelly, liver, galantine, and every sort of meat; ginger, honey, cream,
fruit; cheese-cakes, almond and lemon; little open tarts called bry
tarts, made of literal cheese, with a multitude of other articles--eggs,
honey or sugar, and spices; and many another compound of multifarious
and indigestible edibles; for what number of incongruities, palatable or
sanitary, did our forefathers _not_ put together in a pie! For one
description of dainty, however, Mr Altham would have been asked on this
July afternoon in vain. He would have deemed it next door to sacrilege
to heat his oven for a mince pie, outside the charmed period between
Christmas Eve and Twelfth Day.

On the afternoon in question, Mr Altham stepped out of his door to
speak with his neighbour the girdler, and no sooner was he well out of
the way than another person walked into it. This was a youth of some
eighteen years, dressed in a very curious costume. Men did not affect
black clothes t