rooms very much," I said to a prim person there, and I hesitated.

"But I suppose they are too dear for you," she said.

How careful one must be hunting lodgings in England about "extras."
Lodgings made in the U.S.A. are all ready to live in, when you have
paid your rent. But over on the other side, you recall, the rent, so
amazingly cheap, is merely an item. Light, "coals," linen, and
"attendance" are all "extra."

I met an interesting person letting lodgings in Whitechapel. She was
not attractive physically. Her chief drapery was an apron. This,
indeed, was fairly adequate before. But--I think she was like the
ostrich who sticks his head in the sand.

My sister-in-law, a highly intelligent woman------ There are, by the
way, people who will think anything. Some may say that I am ending
this article rather abruptly.

My sister-in-law, a highly intelligent woman, used to say, in
compositions at school when stumped by material too much for her, that
she had in her eye, so to say, things "too numerous to mention."

Anybody who would chronicle his adventures in hunting lodgings is
confronted by incidents, humorous, wild, bizarre, queer, strange,
peculiar, sentimental, touching, tragic, weird, and so on and so forth,
"too numerous to mention."

XV

MY FRIEND, THE POLICEMAN

To the best of my knowledge and belief (as a popular phrase has it), I
am the only person in the United States who corresponds with a London
policeman. About all you know about the London policeman is that he is
a trim and well-set-up figure and an efficient-looking officer. When
you have asked him your way he has replied somewhat thus: "Straight up
the road, sir, take your first turning to the right, sir, the second
left, sir, and then at the top of the street you will find it directly
before you, sir." You have, perhaps, heard that the London police
force offers something like an honourable career to a young man, that
"Bobbies" are decently paid, that they are advanced systematically, may
retire early on a fair pension, and that frequently they come from the
country, as their innocent English faces and fresh complexions
indicate. Sometimes also you have observed that in directing you they
find it necessary to consult a pocket map of the town. Your general
impression doubtless is that they are rather nice fellows.

It was in Cheyne Walk that I met my policeman. I had got off the 'bus
at Battersea Bridge, and was seeking