ere is no
privacy at all! To me the manner in which your poorer classes are housed
in the suburbs, packed closely together in flimsy buildings, where every
sound can be heard, suggests a form of socialism--communism, or perhaps
rather the phalansterian system.'

But Earlsfield was already passed, and we were reaching Wimbledon. Here
M. Zola's impressions changed. True, he did not have occasion to
perambulate what he would doubtless have called the 'phalansterian'
streets of new South Wimbledon. I spared him the sight of the chess-board
of bricks and mortar into which the speculative builder has turned acre
after acre north of Merton High Street. But the Hill Road, the Broadway,
the Worple Road, and the various turnings that climb towards the Ridgeway
pleased him. And he commented very favourably on the shops in the
Broadway and the Hill Road, which in the waning sunshine still looked gay
and bright. At every moment he stopped to examine something. Such
displays of fruit, and fish, poultry, meat, and provisions of all kinds;
the drapers' windows all aglow with summer fabrics, and those of the
jewellers coruscating with gold and gems. Then the public-houses
--dignified by the name of hotels, though I explained that they had
no hotel accommodation--bespoke all the wealth of a powerful trade.

There was an imposing bank, too, and a stylish carriage builder's, with
furniture shops, stationers, pastrycooks, hairdressers, ironmongers, and
so forth, whose displays testified to the prosperity of the town. Again
and again did M. Zola express the opinion that these Wimbledon shops were
by far superior to such as one would find in a French town of
corresponding size and at a similar distance from the capital.

We sauntered up and down the Hill Road, looking in at the Free Library on
our way. Then, on passing the Alexandra Road, I explained to Desmoulin
that he would sleep there, at No. 20, where Wareham has a local office
and where his managing clerk, Everson by name, resides.

The arrangement with Wareham had been concluded so precipitately that, to
spare him unnecessary trouble at home, we had arranged to dine that
evening at a local restaurant--in fact, the only restaurant possessed by
Wimbledon. Wareham was to join us there. The proprietor, Mr. Genoni, is
of foreign origin, but Wareham knowing him personally had assured me that
even should he suspect our friend's identity his discretion might readily
be relied upon. And so t