of the morning-room window that she slid all
the way down the area-steps and sent Michael to bed as a punishment for
peeping. At last she decided that Michael must go for walks by himself
and lest he should be lost or get into mischief, every walk must be in
the same direction, along the same road to the same place and back. He
was to walk up Carlington Road into the Hammersmith Road and along the
Kensington Road as far as the Earl's Court Road. Here he was to stop and
turn round and walk back to Carlington Road on his traces.

Michael detested this walk. He would stump up the area-steps, watched by
Nurse, and he would walk steadily, looking neither to the right nor to
the left according to orders, as far as 44 Carlington Road. Here in the
morning-room window was a small aquarium, sadly mobile with half a
dozen pale goldfish, that Michael would be compelled to watch for a few
seconds before he turned round and acknowledged the fact that Nurse was
flicking him on with her hand. Michael would proceed past the other
houses until he came to 22 Carlington Road, where a break occurred,
caused by a house entirely different from any of the others, at the side
of which was a huge double door. This was sometimes open, and inside
could be seen men hammering with chisels at enormous statues including
representations of Queen Victoria and of a benignant lion. Next to this
house was a post office, not an ordinary post office where stamps could
be bought, but a harum-scarum place, full of postmen running up and down
and emptying bags and hammering on letters and talking very loudly and
very quickly. By this office Carlington Road made an abrupt rectangular
turn past a tumble-down tarred fence, through whose interstices could be
seen a shadowy garden full of very long pale grass and of trees with
jet-black trunks. Beyond the trees was a tumble-down house with big bare
windows glinting amongst the ivy. After this Carlington Road went on
again with smaller houses of a deeper red brick than those in the part
where Michael lived. They had no basements, and one could see into their
dining-rooms, so close were they to the road. When 2 Carlington Road was
reached a tall advertisement hoarding began, and for a hundred yards the
walk became absolutely interesting. Then Carlington Mansions rose
majestic, and Michael, who had been told that they were flats and had
heard people wondering at this strange new method of existence, loitered
for a mome