g which he had ordered on approval.

There were two bell-knobs. He pulled one, and waited for the portals to
open on discreet vistas of luxurious furniture. No response! Just as he
was consulting the _Telegraph_ to make sure of the number, the door
silently swung back, and disclosed the figure of a middle-aged woman in
black silk, who regarded him with a stern astonishment.

"Is this----?" he began, nervous and abashed by her formidable stare.

"Were you wanting rooms?" she asked.

"Yes," said he. "I was. If I could just see----"

"Will you come in?" she said. And her morose face, under stringent
commands from her brain, began an imitation of a smile which, as an
imitation, was wonderful. It made you wonder how she had ever taught her
face to do it.

Priam Farll found himself blushing on a Turkey carpet, and a sort of
cathedral gloom around him. He was disconcerted, but the Turkey carpet
assured him somewhat. As his eyes grew habituated to the light he saw
that the cathedral was very narrow, and that instead of the choir was a
staircase, also clothed in Turkey carpet. On the lowest step reposed an
object whose nature he could not at first determine.

"Would it be for long?" the lips opposite him muttered cautiously.

His reply--the reply of an impulsive, shy nature--was to rush out of the
palace. He had identified the object on the stairs. It was a slop-pail
with a wrung cloth on its head.

He felt profoundly discouraged and pessimistic. All his energy had left
him. London had become hard, hostile, cruel, impossible. He longed for
Leek with a great longing.

_Tea_

An hour later, having at the kind suggestion of the cabman deposited
Leek's goods at the cloak-room of South Kensington Station, he was
wandering on foot out of old London into the central ring of new London,
where people never do anything except take the air in parks, lounge in
club-windows, roll to and fro in peculiar vehicles that have ventured
out without horses and are making the best of it, buy flowers and
Egyptian cigarettes, look at pictures, and eat and drink. Nearly all the
buildings were higher than they used to be, and the street wider; and at
intervals of a hundred yards or so cranes that rent the clouds and
defied the law of gravity were continually swinging bricks and marble
into the upper layers of the air. Violets were on sale at every corner,
and the atmosphere was impregnated with an intoxicating perfume of
methylated spiri