ent out of the door and down the steps into a
drifting fog which filled the street, the bandy-legged man with the
ribbon in his ear following close upon their heels.

People passed them like shadows in the mist, and all the houses were a
blur until they came into a wide, open place where the wind blew free
above a wall with many great gates.

In the middle of this open place a huge gray building stood, staring out
over the housetops--a great cathedral, wonderful and old. Its walls were
dark with time and smoke and damp, and the lofty tower that rose above
it was in part but a hollow shell split by lightning and blackened by
fire. But crowded between its massive buttresses were booths and
chapmen's stalls; against its hoary side a small church leaned like a
child against a mother's breast; and in and round about it eddied a
throng of men like ants upon a busy hill.

All around the outer square were shops with gilded fronts and most
amazing signs: golden angels with outstretched wings, tiger heads,
bears, brazen serpents, and silver cranes; and in and out of the
shop-doors darted apprentices with new-bound books and fresh-printed
slips; for this was old St. Paul's, the meeting-place of London town,
and in Paul's Yard the printers and the bookmen dealt.

With a deal of elbowing the master-player came up the broad steps into
the cathedral, and down the aisle to the pillars where the
merchant-tailors stood with table-books in hand, and there ordered a
brand-new suit of clothes for Nick of old Roger Shearman, the best
cloth-cutter in Threadneedle street.

While they were deep in silk and silver thread, Haerlem linen, and
Leyden camelot, Nick stared about him half aghast; for it was to him
little less than monstrous to see a church so thronged with merchants
plying their trades as if the place were no more sacred than a booth in
the public square.

The long nave of the cathedral was crowded with mercers from Cheapside,
drapers from Throgmorton street, stationers from Ludgate Hill, and
goldsmiths from Foster lane, hats on, loud-voiced, and using the very
font itself for a counter. By the columns beyond, sly, foxy-faced
lawyers hobnobbed; and on long benches by the wall, cast-off
serving-men, varlets, grooms, pastry-bakers, and pages sat, waiting to
be hired by some new master. Besides these who came on business there
was a host of gallants in gold-laced silk and velvet promenading up and
down the aisle, with no business