ght outright by some person of great wealth, whose design is to
pull it down and erect a block of apartments. Mrs. Honeyball is
somewhat afraid of this person. She gets in a great flutter, about the
twentieth of the month, over her accounts. Just now, however, she is
placidly benevolent and hopes that author has slept well. He has and
says so, and opening the outer door, an immense portal of heavy wood
studded with big black nails, he steps down into the archway, where
Mr. Honeyball is encountered. Mr. Honeyball has been in the army, has
retired on a sergeant-major's pension after twenty-three years service
and he salutes the author in correct military fashion.

These amenities concluded and watches compared with the great clock of
the Law Courts visible from the end of the passage, the author turned
westward and set off briskly toward Charing Cross, buying a paper on
the way, and noting from time to time the attractively attired young
ladies who were hurrying to their various employments. At the risk of
evoking a certain conventional incredulity in the readers' bosom, the
author is constrained to point out that he harboured only the purest
and most abstract sentiments towards these young women. There is a
period in the life of the literary artist, unhappily not permanent,
when the surface of his mind may be described as absorbent of
emotional influences, a period which results in the accumulation of
vast quantities of data concerning women without to any degree
destroying the authentic simplicity of his heart. And when the point
of saturation is reached, to use an engineer's phrase, the artist,
still preserving his own innocence, begins to produce. And this, one
may remark in passing, is the happiest time of his life! He combines
the felicity of youth, the wisdom of age, and the unencumbered
vitality of manhood. He knows, even while in love, as he frequently is
at such periods, that there are loftier peaks beyond, mountain-ranges
of emotion up which some day he is destined to travel, and he
disregards the pathetic seductions of those who would bid him settle
in their quiet valleys.

Arriving in the neighbourhood of Charing Cross, the author takes an
affectionate glimpse into Trafalgar Square, and turns down a steep,
narrow street, leading towards the River, where is situated a small
eating house. At that time, it should be observed, almost the only way
for a stranger to obtain a breakfast in London was to go to a
hot