went out with hair-powder, and that Old England's greatness
had decayed amain with barbers.

As to Todgers's itself--speaking of it only as a house in that
neighbourhood, and making no reference to its merits as a commercial
boarding establishment--it was worthy to stand where it did. There was
one staircase-window in it, at the side of the house, on the ground
floor; which tradition said had not been opened for a hundred years at
least, and which, abutting on an always dirty lane, was so begrimed and
coated with a century's mud, that no one pane of glass could possibly
fall out, though all were cracked and broken twenty times. But the grand
mystery of Todgers's was the cellarage, approachable only by a little
back door and a rusty grating; which cellarage within the memory of man
had had no connection with the house, but had always been the freehold
property of somebody else, and was reported to be full of wealth; though
in what shape--whether in silver, brass, or gold, or butts of wine,
or casks of gun-powder--was matter of profound uncertainty and supreme
indifference to Todgers's and all its inmates.

The top of the house was worthy of notice. There was a sort of terrace
on the roof, with posts and fragments of rotten lines, once intended to
dry clothes upon; and there were two or three tea-chests out there,
full of earth, with forgotten plants in them, like old walking-sticks.
Whoever climbed to this observatory, was stunned at first from having
knocked his head against the little door in coming out; and after that,
was for the moment choked from having looked perforce, straight down the
kitchen chimney; but these two stages over, there were things to gaze
at from the top of Todgers's, well worth your seeing too. For first
and foremost, if the day were bright, you observed upon the house-tops,
stretching far away, a long dark path; the shadow of the Monument; and
turning round, the tall original was close beside you, with every hair
erect upon his golden head, as if the doings of the city frightened him.
Then there were steeples, towers, belfries, shining vanes, and masts of
ships; a very forest. Gables, housetops, garret-windows, wilderness upon
wilderness. Smoke and noise enough for all the world at once.

After the first glance, there were slight features in the midst of this
crowd of objects, which sprung out from the mass without any reason, as
it were, and took hold of the attention whether the spectator wo