more
reasons than one Peace was anxious to unite under the same roof Mrs.
Peace and Mrs. Thompson. Things still prospering, Peace found himself
able to remove from Lambeth to Crane Court, Greenwich, and before long
to take a couple of adjoining houses in Billingsgate Street in the
same district. These he furnished in style. In one he lived with Mrs.
Thompson, while Mrs. Peace and her son, Willie, were persuaded after
some difficulty to leave Hull and come to London to dwell in the other.

But Greenwich was not to the taste of Mrs. Thompson. To gratify her
wish, Peace, some time in May, 1877, removed the whole party to a house,
No. 5, East Terrace, Evelina Road, Peckham. He paid thirty pounds a year
for it, and obtained permission to build a stable for his pony and trap.
When asked for his references, Peace replied by inviting the agent to
dine with him at his house in Greenwich, a proceeding that seems to have
removed all doubt from the agent's mind as to the desirability of the
tenant.

This now famous house in Peckham was of the ordinary type of suburban
villa, with basement, ground floor, and one above; there were steps up
to the front door, and a bow window to the front sitting-room. A garden
at the back of the house ran down to the Chatham and Dover railway line.
It was by an entrance at the back that Peace drove his horse and trap
into the stable which he had erected in the garden. Though all living
in the same house, Mrs. Peace, who passed as Mrs. Ward, and her son,
Willie, inhabited the basement, while Peace and Mrs. Thompson occupied
the best rooms on the ground floor. The house was fitted with Venetian
blinds. In the drawing-room stood a good walnut suite of furniture; a
Turkey carpet, gilded mirrors, a piano, an inlaid Spanish guitar, and,
by the side of an elegant table, the beaded slippers of the good
master of the house completed the elegance of the apartment. Everything
confirmed Mr. Thompson's description of himself as a gentleman of
independent means with a taste for scientific inventions. In association
with a person of the name of Brion, Peace did, as a fact, patent an
invention for raising sunken vessels, and it is said that in pursuing
their project, the two men had obtained an interview with Mr. Plimsoll
at the House of Commons. In any case, the Patent Gazette records the
following grant:

"2635 Henry Fersey Brion, 22 Philip Road, Peckham Rye, London, S.E., and
John Thompson, 5 East Terrace,