ze-fighters, and racehorses; lovely female
types, as originally published in Heath's Book of Beauty; there were
fashion-plates next to Bartolozzi's, not in fashion, and I daresay many
an undiscovered treasure besides. I used to spend my pennies on views of
London, little steel-plate engravings, printed on a sort of shiny
cardboard. Was it my innate love for London that made them so
attractive, or my equally innate love of architecture? Probably both. I
always was, and am still a cockney at heart, and as for the building
craze, that has been on me from that day to this. Certainly no boy ever
had such a collection of bricks as I had, and such a table to build on,
specially constructed with drawers and divisions for all sizes and forms
of my materials.

"I'm going to be an architect," I informed the old Duke of Cambridge on
a gala occasion when he rode up to our house. "Right you are, my boy,"
said the Duke. "You'll be too late to build me a house, but you can
build me a mausoleum." I've been planning mausoleums ever since, but
unfortunately, not being an architect, I never have had a commission in
that line. The Duke, who was an enthusiastic lover of music, had come on
that occasion specially interested to hear Bach's Concerto in G minor,
which my father played from a copy of the original manuscript he had
received from his friend Professor Fischhof, of Vienna.

But to return from Royalty to the plebeian quarter of St. Giles, I must
state that whatever of my pocket-money may have been invested in views
of London, it was not that printshop, but the Lowther Arcade, which
usually wrecked my finances. I could not resist the temptation which
that short cut from the Strand to Catherine Street offered; my money
went to the purchase of most fascinating articles, unfortunately at best
of a twopenny-halfpenny character, things of beauty irresistibly
suggesting themselves as presents for my sisters, things no girl should
be without, wax angels under glass globes, bottle imps, china
shepherdesses, or jumping frogs, the latter to be sprung upon the
recipient unexpectedly. I brought them home and confided to my mother
what bargains I had got. Unhappily the angels, frogs, imps, and the
rest, however effective at first, were not long lived, or they proved
themselves otherwise disappointing; so they were soon forgotten. Not so
their cost.

My mother had carefully kept account of my wasteful expenditure for some
weeks, and one day she c