ough London by an utter
stranger, and not to see the names of the streets or a single landmark.
Pocket had not even heard the cabman's instructions where to drive; they
had been given after he got in. His ear was more alert now. He noted the
change from wood-paving to rough metal. Then more wood, and an
indubitable omnibus blundering by; then more metal, in better repair;
quieter streets, the tinkle of cans, the milkman's queer cry; and finally,
"Next to the right and the fifth house on your left," in the voice with
the almost imperceptibly foreign accent.

The fifth house on the left was exactly like the fourth and the sixth from
the little Pocket saw of any of them. He was hurried up a tiled path,
none too clean between swarthy and lack-lustre laurels; the steps had not
been "done"; the door wore the nondescript complexion of prehistoric paint
debased by the caprices of the London climate. One touch of colour the
lad saw before this unpromising portal opened and shut upon him: he had
already passed through a rank of pollard trees, sprouting emeralds in the
morning sun, that seemed common to this side of the road, and effectually
hid the other.

Within the doctor held up a finger and they both trod gently. The passage
was dark and short. The stairs began abruptly on the right. Baumgartner
led the way past a closed door on the left, into an unexpectedly bright
and large room beyond it. "Sit down," said he, and shut the door softly
behind him.

Pocket took observations from the edge of his chair. The room was full of
walnut trivialities that looked aggressively obsolete in the sunshine that
filled it and flooded a green little garden at the back of the house. Dr.
Baumgartner had pulled up a blind and opened a window, and he stood
looking out in thought while Pocket hurriedly completed his optical round.
A set of walnut chairs were dreadfully upholstered in faded tapestry; but
a deep, worn one looked comfortable enough, and a still more redeeming
feature was the semi-grand piano. There were books, too, and in the far
corner by the bow-window a glass door leading into a conservatory as
minute as Pocket's study at school, and filled with geraniums. On the
walls hung a series of battle engravings, one representing a bloody
advance over ridged fields in murderously close formation, others the
storming of heights and villages.

Baumgartner met his visitor's eyes with the faint cold smile that scarcely
softened