y, but I wanted to reflect, to conquer my mood, and the
midnight solitude of the land of Squares which lay between me and Hyde
Park appealed quite irresistibly.

There is a distinct pleasure to be derived from a solitary walk through
London, in the small hours of an April morning, provided one is so
situated as to be capable of enjoying it. To appreciate the solitude
and mystery of the sleeping city, a certain sense of prosperity--a
knowledge that one is immune from the necessity of being abroad at
that hour--is requisite. The tramp, the night policeman and the
coffee-stall keeper know more of London by night than most people--but
of the romance of the dark hours they know little. Romance succumbs
before necessity.

I had good reason to be keenly alive to the aroma of mystery which
pervades the most commonplace thoroughfare after the hum of the
traffic has subsided--when the rare pedestrian and the rarer cab alone
traverse the deserted highway. With more intimate cares seeking to
claim my mind, it was good to tramp along the echoing, empty streets
and to indulge in imaginative speculation regarding the strange
things that night must shroud in every big city. I have known the
solitude of deserts, but the solitude of London is equally fascinating.

He whose business or pleasure had led him to traverse the route which
was mine on this memorable night must have observed how each of the
squares composing that residential chain which links the outer with
the inner Society has a popular and an exclusive side. The angle used
by vehicular traffic in crossing the square from corner to corner
invariably is rich in a crop of black board bearing house-agent's
announcements.

In the shadow of such a board I paused, taking out my case an
leisurely selecting a cigar. So many of the houses in the southwest
angle were unoccupied, that I found myself taking quite an interest
in one a little way ahead; from the hall door and from the long
conservatory over the porch light streamed out.

Excepting these illuminations, there was no light elsewhere in the
square to show which houses were inhabited and which vacant. I might
have stood in a street of Pompeii or Thebes--a street of the dead past.
I permitted my imagination to dwell upon this idea as I fumbled for
matches and gazed about me. I wondered if a day would come when some
savant of a future land, in a future age, should stand where I stood
and endeavor to reconstruct, from the cru