and each little face is smirched. The gaunt
warehouses hardly support their lopping heads, and the low, beetling,
gabled houses of the alleys seem for ever to brood on nights of bitter
adventure. Fit objects for contempt by day they may be, but when night
creeps upon London, the hideous darkness that can almost be touched,
then their faces become very powers of terror, and the cautious soul,
wandered from the comfort of the main streets, walks and walks in a
frenzy, seeking outlet and finding none. Sometimes a hoarse laugh will
break sharp on his ear. Then he runs.

Well, I finished my second, and then sauntered out. As I was passing a
cruel-looking passage, a gang of lads and girls stepped forward. One of
the girls looked at me. Her face had the melancholy of Russia, but her
voice was as the voice of Cockaigne. For she spoke and said--

"Funny-looking little guy, ain't you?"

I suppose I was. So I smiled and said that we were as God made us.

She giggled....

I said I felt sure I should do no good on the Vassiloff murder. I
didn't. For just then the other four marched ahead, crying, "Come on!"
And, surprised, yet knowing of no good reason for being surprised, I
felt the girl's arm slip into mine, and we joined the main column.

That is one of London's greatest charms: it is always ready to toss you
little encounters of this sort, if you are out for them.

Across the road we went, through mire and puddle, and down a long,
winding court. At about midway our friends disappeared, and, suddenly
drawn to the right, I was pushed from behind up a steep, fusty stair.
Then I knew where we were going. We were going to the tenements where
most of the Russians meet of an evening. The atmosphere in these places
is a little more cheerful than that of the cafes--if you can imagine a
Russian ever rising to cheerfulness. Most of the girls lodge over the
milliners' shops, and thither their friends resort. Every establishment
here has a piano, for music, with them, is a sombre passion rather than
a diversion. You will not hear comic opera, but if you want to climb the
lost heights of melody, stand in Bell Yard, and listen to a piano, lost
in the high glooms, wailing the heart of Chopin or Rubinstein or
Glazounoff through the fingers of pale, moist girls, while the ghost of
Peter the Painter parades the naphthaed highways.

At the top of the stair I was pushed into a dark, fusty room, and guided
to a low, fusty sofa or bed. Then so