eat variety of
'characters,' and terrific combats. The bonnet-shape maker gave place to
a greengrocer, and the histrionic barber was succeeded, in his turn, by a
tailor. So numerous have been the changes, that we have of late done
little more than mark the peculiar but certain indications of a house
being poorly inhabited. It has been progressing by almost imperceptible
degrees. The occupiers of the shops have gradually given up room after
room, until they have only reserved the little parlour for themselves.
First there appeared a brass plate on the private door, with 'Ladies'
School' legibly engraved thereon; shortly afterwards we observed a second
brass plate, then a bell, and then another bell.

When we paused in front of our old friend, and observed these signs of
poverty, which are not to be mistaken, we thought as we turned away, that
the house had attained its lowest pitch of degradation. We were wrong.
When we last passed it, a 'dairy' was established in the area, and a
party of melancholy-looking fowls were amusing themselves by running in
at the front door, and out at the back one.

CHAPTER IV--SCOTLAND-YARD

Scotland-yard is a small--a very small-tract of land, bounded on one side
by the river Thames, on the other by the gardens of Northumberland House:
abutting at one end on the bottom of Northumberland-street, at the other
on the back of Whitehall-place. When this territory was first
accidentally discovered by a country gentleman who lost his way in the
Strand, some years ago, the original settlers were found to be a tailor,
a publican, two eating-house keepers, and a fruit-pie maker; and it was
also found to contain a race of strong and bulky men, who repaired to the
wharfs in Scotland-yard regularly every morning, about five or six
o'clock, to fill heavy waggons with coal, with which they proceeded to
distant places up the country, and supplied the inhabitants with fuel.
When they had emptied their waggons, they again returned for a fresh
supply; and this trade was continued throughout the year.

As the settlers derived their subsistence from ministering to the wants
of these primitive traders, the articles exposed for sale, and the places
where they were sold, bore strong outward marks of being expressly
adapted to their tastes and wishes. The tailor displayed in his window a
Lilliputian pair of leather gaiters, and a diminutive round frock, while
each doorpost was appropriately garnishe