been closed up with oddments of brick
and tile, giving to the wall a very variegated and chequered appearance.
Thus the ground-floor and the first-floor were absolutely divorced, the
former having its entrance and light from the public alley, the latter
from the private yard.

The first-floor had been a printing office for over seventy years. All
the machinery in it had had to be manoeuvred up the rickety stairs, or
put through one of the windows on either side of the window that had
been turned into a door. When Darius Clayhanger, in his audacity,
decided to print by steam, many people imagined that he would at last be
compelled to rent the ground-floor or to take other premises. But no!
The elasticity of the makeshift policy was not yet fully stretched.
Darius, in consultation with a jobbing builder, came happily to the
conclusion that he could `manage,' that he could `make things do,' by
adding to the top of his stairs a little landing for an engine-shed.
This was done, and the engine and boiler perched in the air; the shaft
of the engine went through the wall; the chimney-pipe of the boiler ran
up straight to the level of the roof-ridge, and was stayed with pieces
of wire. A new chimney had also been pierced in the middle of the roof,
for the uses of a heating stove. The original chimneys had been allowed
to fall into decay. Finally, a new large skylight added interest to the
roof. In a general way, the building resembled a suit of clothes that
had been worn, during four of the seven ages of man, by an untidy
husband with a tidy and economical wife, and then given by the wife to a
poor relation of a somewhat different figure to finish. All that could
be said of it was that it survived and served.

But these considerations occurred to nobody.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

THREE.

Edwin, quite unaware that he was an instrument in the hands of his
Auntie Clara's Providence, left the shop without due excuse and passed
down the long blue-paved yard towards the printing office. He imagined
that he was being drawn thither simply by his own curiosity--a
curiosity, however, which he considered to be justifiable, and even
laudable. The yard showed signs that the unusual had lately been
happening there. Its brick pavement, in the narrow branch of it that
led to the double gates in Woodisun Bank (those gates which said to the
casual visitor, `No Admittance except on