would presently be after us, and so it was just as well to play the game according to the orthodox rules of romance. After all, was it not in something akin to a romance that I was living?

IV

A CHANGE OF QUARTERS

It should be mentioned that the departure of Messrs. Zola and Desmoulin from the Grosvenor Hotel took place almost immediately after Wareham had returned to his office. We were not to meet our friend the solicitor again until the evening at Wimbledon, but the hotel being apparently a dangerous spot, it was thought best to quit it forthwith.

When we reached Waterloo the dressing-case and the newspaper parcel were deposited at one of the cloak-rooms; and after making the round of the station, we descended into the Waterloo Road. At first we sauntered towards the New Cut, and of course M. Zola could not help noticing the contrast between the dingy surroundings amidst which he now found himself and the stylish shops and roads he had seen in the Buckingham Palace Road. The vista was not cheering, so I proposed that we should retrace our steps and go as far as Waterloo Bridge.

There seemed to be little risk in doing so, for, as usual hereabouts in the middle of the afternoon, there were few people to be seen. The great successive rush of homeward-bound employers, clerks, and workpeople had not yet set in. And, moreover, there was plenty of time; for Wareham, having important business in town that day, could not possibly be at Wimbledon till half-past six at the earliest.

We reached the bridge—'that monument,' as a famous Frenchman once put in, 'worthy of Sesostris and the Caesars'—and went about half-way across. It was splendid weather, and the Thames was aglow with the countless reflections of the sunbeams that fell from the hot, whitening sky. London was before us, 'with her palaces down to the water'; and M. Zola stopped short, gazing intently at the scene.

'Up-stream the view was spoilt,' said he, 'by the hideous Hungerford Bridge, unworthy alike of the city and the river'—an erection such as no Paris municipality would have tolerated for four and twenty hours. It was the more obtrusive and aggravating, since beyond it one discerned but little of the towers of Westminster. 'Admitting,' added the novelist, 'that a bridge is needed at that point for railway traffic, surely there is no reason why it should be so surprisingly ugly. However, from all I see, it seems more and more evident that you English people are very much in the habit of sacrificing beauty to utility, forgetting that with a little artistic sense it is easy to combine the two.'

Then, however, he turned slightly, and looked down-stream where the Victoria Embankment spreads past the Temple to Blackfriars. The colonnades of Somerset House showed boldly and with a certain majesty in the foreground, whilst in the distance, high over every roof, arose the leaden dome of St. Paul's. This vista was rather to M. Zola's liking. Close beside us, on the bridge, was one of the semi-circular embrasures garnished with stone seats. A pitiful-looking vagrant was lolling there; but this made no difference to M. Zola. He installed himself on the seat with Desmoulin on one hand and myself on the other, and there we remained for some little time looking about us and chatting.

'This was the only thing wanted,' said Desmoulin, who generally had some humorous remark in readiness for every situation. 'Yesterday at the Grosvenor we were in the fosse de Vincennes, and now, as they say in the melodrama of "The Knights of the Fog" ("Les Chevaliers du Brouillard"*), we are "homeless wanderers stranded on the bridges of London."'

* The French dramatic adaptation of Ainsworth's 'Jack Sheppard.'

The allusion to the fog roused M. Zola from his contemplation.

'But where is the Savoy Hotel, where I stayed in '93?' he inquired. 'It must be very near here.'

I pointed it out to him, and he was astonished. 'Why, no—that cannot be! It is so large a place, and now it looks so small. What is that huge building beside it?'

'The Hotel Cecil,' I replied.

Then again he shook his head in disapproval. From an artistic standpoint he strongly objected to the huge caravansary on which builder Hobbs and pious Jabez Balfour spent so much of other people's money. Soaring massively and pretentiously into the sky it dwarfed everything around; and thus, in his opinion, utterly spoilt that part of the Embankment.

'To think, too,' said he, 'that you had such a site, here, along the river, and allowed it to be used for hotels and clubs, and so forth. There was room for a Louvre here, and you want one badly; for your National Gallery, which I well remember visiting in '93, is a most wretched affair architecturally.'

'But I want to see rather more of the south side of the river,' he added, after a pause. 'I should like to ascertain if my lion is still there. I recollect that there was some fog about on the morning after my arrival at the Savoy in '93; and when I went to the window of my room I noticed the mist parting—one mass of vapour ascending skyward, while the other still hovered over the river. And, in the rent between, I espied a lion, poised in mid air. It amused me vastly; and I called my wife, saying to her, "Come and see. Here's the British lion waiting to bid us good-day."'

We went to the end of the bridge and thence espied the lion which surmounts the brewery of that name. M. Zola recognised it immediately. Desmoulin would then have led us Strandward; but the Strand, said I, was about the most dangerous thoroughfare in all London for those who wished to escape recognition; so we went back over the bridge and again down the Waterloo road.

'I should like very much to send a line to Paris to-day to stop letters from going to the Grosvenor,' said M. Zola. 'Is there any place hereabouts where I could write a note?'

This question perplexed me, for the numerous facilities for letter-writing which are supplied by the cafes of Paris are conspicuously absent in London; and this I explained to M. Zola. A postage stamp may often be procured at a public-house, but only now and again can one there obtain ink and paper. However, I thought we might as well try the saloon bar of the York Hotel, which abuts on the famous 'Poverty Corner,' so much frequented by ladies and gentlemen of the 'halls,' when, sorely against their inclinations, they are 'resting.'

It was Thursday afternoon; still there were several disconsolate-looking individuals lounging about the corner; and in the saloon bar we found some fourteen or fifteen loudly dressed men and women typical of the spot. I forget what I ordered for Desmoulin and myself, but M. Zola, I know imbibed, mainly for the good of the house, 'a small lemon plain.' Then we ascertained that the young lady at the bar had neither stamps, nor paper, nor envelopes, and so we were again in a quandary. Fortunately I recollected a little stationer's shop in the York Road, and leaving the others in the saloon bar, I went in search of the requisite materials.

When I returned I found the master an object of general attention. His extremely prosperous appearance, his white billycock, his jewellery, and so forth, coupled with the circumstance that he conversed in French with Desmoulin, had led some of those present to imagine that he was a Continental music-hall director on the look out for English 'artists.'

Again and again I noticed, as it were, a 'hungry' glance in his direction; and when, after procuring an inkstand from over the bar, I had ensconced him in a corner, where he was able after a fashion to pen his correspondence,