s-slides. But even more remarkable than its contents was the room
itself, and its singular architectural proportions at once engaged my
attention.

As I have said, the house occupied two twenty-five-foot city lots, but
the entrance and hall were at the extreme right as one looks outward
towards the street, instead of being in the centre, as is usually the
case. Consequently, the room in which we stood (being undivided by any
interior partitions) extended the full width of the house, less that of
the entrance hall--forty feet, let us say, in round numbers. But its
measurements in the other direction were barely ten feet, the apartment
presenting the appearance of a long, low, and narrow gallery. At the
back were a row of five windows taking light from the interior
court-yard; in brief, the house, imposing in its dimensions from the
street side, was little more than a mask of masonry extremely
ill-adapted for human habitation, or, indeed, for any purpose. Stepping
to one of the rear windows, I looked out, and then the reason for this
extraordinary construction--or, rather, reconstruction--became
apparent. The lot was of the usual depth of one hundred feet, and,
being a double one, it had a width of fifty. A large building of gray
stone occupied the farther end of this inside space, the erection
measuring about sixty feet in depth and extending the full width of the
enclosure. That left a little less than thirty feet of court-yard
between this back building and the one facing on the street, and it was
evident that the rear of the original house had been sheared off bodily
to provide for this singular readjustment in the owner's modus vivendi,
only the party walls on either side being left standing. And these had
been extended so as to enflank the building in the rear.

If I have made my description clear, it now will be understood that the
facade of the original house was nothing more than a shell, a ten-foot
screen whose principal office was to conceal the interior structure
from curious eyes. Describing the latter more particularly, it should
be noted that it was connected with the original house by a covered
passageway of brick running along one side of the court-yard and
communicating with the hallway that led to the street door. Apparently,
the rear building was three stories in height--I say apparently, for,
being entirely destitute of windows, it was impossible to accurately
deduce the number of its floors. Aesthet