uilt
in Queen Anne's and George the First's time; and while some of the
neighbouring streets, to wit, Great Craggs Street, Bolingbroke Street,
and others, contain mansions fairly coped with stone, with little
obelisks before the doors, and great extinguishers wherein the torches
of the nobility's running footmen were put out a hundred and thirty or
forty years ago:--houses which still remain abodes of the quality,
and where you shall see a hundred carriages gather of a public night;
Walpole Street has quite faded away into lodgings, private hotels,
doctors' houses, and the like; nor is No. 23 (Ridley's) by any means the
best house in the street. The parlour, furnished and tenanted by Miss
Cann as has been described; the first floor, Bagshot, Esq., M.P.; the
second floor, Honeyman; what remains but the garrets, and the ample
staircase and the kitchens? and the family being all put to bed, how can
you imagine there is room for any more inhabitants?

And yet there is one lodger more, and one who, like almost all the other
personages mentioned up to the present time (and some of whom you have
no idea yet), will play a definite part in the ensuing history. At
night, when Honeyman comes in, he finds on the hall-table three wax
bedroom candles--his own, Bagshot's, and another. As for Miss Cann,
she is locked into the parlour in bed long ago, her stout little
walking-shoes being on the mat at the door. At 12 o'clock at noon,
sometimes at 1, nay at 2 and 3--long after Bagshot is gone to his
committees, and little Cann to her pupils--a voice issues from the very
topmost floor, from a room where there is no bell; a voice of thunder
calling out "Slavey! Julia! Julia, my love! Mrs. Ridley!" And this
summons not being obeyed, it will not unfrequently happen that a pair
of trousers enclosing a pair of boots with iron heels, and known by the
name of the celebrated Prussian General who came up to help the other
christener of boots at Waterloo, will be flung down from the topmost
story, even to the marble floor of the resounding hall. Then the boy
Thomas, otherwise called Slavey, may say, "There he goes again;" or Mrs.
Ridley's own back-parlour bell rings vehemently, and Julia the cook will
exclaim, "Lor, it's Mr. Frederick."

If the breeches and boots are not understood, the owner himself appears
in great wrath dancing on the upper story; dancing down to the lower
floor; and loosely enveloped in a ragged and flowing robe de chambre.
I