te a hundred staid readers of _The Speaker_ and
oblige him to placate in private a dozen puzzled and indignant
correspondents. For those were days before the beards had stiffened on
the chins of some of us who assembled to reform politics, art, literature,
and the world in general from a somewhat frowsy upstairs coffee-room in
C--' Street: days of old--

"When fellowship seem'd not so far to seek
And all the world and we seem'd much less cold
And at the rainbow's foot lay surely gold. . . ."

Well, these cajoleries were not often successful, yet often enough to keep
the sporting instinct alive and active, and a great deal oftener than
F--'s equally disreputable endeavours: it being a tradition with the staff
that F--' had sworn by all his gods to get in an article which would force
the printer to flee the country. I need scarcely say that the tradition
was groundless, but we worked it shamelessly.

In this way on January 9th, 1897 (a year in which the Westminster Aquarium
was yet standing), and shortly after the issue of the New Year's Honours'
List, the following article appeared in _The Speaker_. The reader will
find it quite harmless until he comes to the sequel. It was entitled--

NOOKS OF OLD LONDON.

I.--THE WESTMINSTER SCUTORIUM.

Let me begin by assuring the reader that the Westminster Scutorium
has absolutely no connection with the famous Aquarium across the
road. I suppose that every Londoner has heard, at least, of the
Aquarium, but I doubt if one in a hundred has heard of the little
Scutorium which stands removed from it by a stone's throw, or less;
and I am certain that not one in a thousand has ever stooped his head
to enter by its shy, squat, fifteenth-century doorway. It is a fact
that the very policeman at the entrance to Dean's Yard did not know
its name, and the curator assures me that the Post Office has made
frequent mistakes in delivering his letters. So my warning is not
quite impertinent.

But a reader of antiquarian tastes, who cares as little as I do for
hypnotisers and fasting men, and does not mind a trifle of dust, so
it be venerable, will not regret an hour spent in looking over the
Scutorium, or a chat with Mr. Melville Robertson, its curator, or
Clerk of the Ribands (_Stemmata_)--to give him his official title.
Mr. Robertson ranks, indeed,