Thus in Maitland there survived a little of the
old leaven of the student of Renaissance, a touch of the amateur of
"impressions" and of antiquated furniture. He was always struggling
against this "side," as he called it, of his "culture," and in his hours
of reaction he was all for steam tramways, "devils," and Kindergartens
standing where they ought not. But there were moments when his old
innocent craving for the picturesque got the upper hand; and in one of
those moments Maitland had come across the chance of acquiring the lease
of the _Hit or Miss_.

That ancient bridge-house pleased him, and he closed with his
opportunity. The _Hit or Miss_ was as attractive to an artistic as most
public-houses are to a thirsty soul When the Embankment was made, the
bridge-house had been one of a street of similar quaint and many-gabled
old buildings that leaned up against each other for mutual support near
the rivers edge. But the Embankment slowly brought civilization that
way: the dirty rickety old houses were both condemned and demolished,
till at last only the tavern remained, with hoardings and empty spaces,
and a dust-yard round it.

The house stood at what had been a corner. The red-tiled roof was so
high-pitched as to be almost perpendicular. The dormer windows of the
attics were as picturesque as anything in Nuremberg. The side-walls
were broken in their surface by little odd red-tiled roofs covering
projecting casements, and the house was shored up and supported by huge
wooden beams. You entered (supposing you to enter a public-house) by a
low-browed door in front, if you passed in as ordinary customers did. At
one corner was an odd little board, with the old-fashioned sign:

"Jack's Bridge House.
"_Hit or Miss_--Luck's All."

But there was a side-door, reached by walking down a covered way,
over which the strong oaken rafters (revealed by the unflaking of the
plaster) lay bent and warped by years and the weight of the building.
From this door you saw the side, or rather the back, which the house
kept for its intimates; a side even more picturesque with red-tiled
roofs and dormer windows than that which faced the street. The passage
led down to a slum, and on the left hand, as you entered, lay the empty
space and the dust-yard where the carts were sheltered in sheds, or left
beneath the sky, behind the ruinous hoarding.

Within, the _Hit or Miss_ looked cosey enough to persons entering out of
the cold an