would choose in which to hear the chimes at midnight, a crystal palace- the representative of the present which presses in timidly from a corner upon many things of the past; a withered bank that has been sucked dry by a felonious clerk, a squat building with a hundred columns, and chapel-looking fronts, which always stands knee-deep in baskets, flowers, and scattered vegetables; a common centre into which Nature showers her choicest gifts, and where the kindly fruits of the earth often nearly choke the narrow thoroughfares; a population that never seems to sleep, and that does all in its power to prevent other sleeping; a place where the very latest suppers and the earliest breakfasts jostle each other over the footways."

This same bustle and noise surrounded my easel when I opened it under the great portico of St. Paul's, and began the composition with the church on my left, its columns framing the buildings which Thackeray's pen made so real, and so interesting to his readers of to-day.

The crowd about me was greater, perhaps, than usual, because of the novelty of the sight - outdoor painters being scarce at Covent Garden Market and because, no doubt, the roof of the portico served as a shelter from the rain, which seemed determined to make a day

of it. But it was a good-natured, orderly crowd, the market-men marking a protecting circle about me with the toes of their heavy boots, the women and children looking over their shoulders.

None of them had ever heard of "Evans's." They all knew that the white house between the columns, and which my bit of charcoal was making clear to them, had been a tavern of one kind or another longer ago than even the oldest could remember - up to the time the Sporting Club moved in, but that was as far as their information went.

They "knowed all about" Tavistock's, next the Bedford. I could get "a bite and a pint o' bitters easy, if I was a bit hongry at Tavistock's."

And so, the sketch finished and the rain over, I betook myself to the old, mouldy, smoky tavern under the arcade, and sat me down to the very table no doubt, at which Thackeray, Sir Peter Lely, Turner, Kneller, and many other worthies of the time had had "a morsel to eat and a sup o' drink" and out of the same mug, no doubt; carpeted with the same sawdust on the floor, the webs of forgotten spiders clinging to the rafters overhead.

CHAPTER XII

FLEET STREET AND "THE COCK"

TAVERN

LEET STREET and its tortuous by-alleys

FLEET

were for hundreds of years famous for its taverns. Here not only the wits and gourmands of the day made merry, but within their hospitable walls could be found at all hours of the day, and most of those of the night, men of note and quality.

"The coffee house," to quote Macaulay, "was the Londoner's home, and those who wished to find a gentleman, commonly asked ... whether he frequented the Grecian or the Rainbow."

Of these but few remain. Of many only their sites are known. All of them, however, are remembered because they were the haunts of men whose names are household words today. In the Devil's Tavern, we hear of Swift dining with Dr. Garth and Addison, Garth treating; and of Dr. Johnson presiding at a supper party which was given to Mrs. Charlotte

Lenox, in honour of the publication of her first novel, "The Life of Harriet Stuart."

"The supper was elegant,' so runs the chronicle, "and Johnson had directed that a magnificent hot apple-pie should make a part of it; and this he would have stuck with bay leaves, because, forsooth, Mrs. Lenox was an authoress. About five (A. M.) Johnson's face shone with meridian splendour, though his drink had been only lemonade. The dawn of day began to put us in mind of our reckoning; but the waiters were all so overcome with sleep that it was two hours before a bill could be had, and it was not until near eight that the creaking of the street door gave the signal for our departure."

The famous Kit-Kat Club stood in Shire Lane. Here, in Queen Anne's reign, thirtynine young noblemen and gentlemen attached to the House of Hanover were wont to "sleep away the days and drink away the nights."

Hard by was the Bible Tavern, which was appropriately chosen by Jack Sheppard for many of his orgies, for it was possessed of a trap-door leading to a subterranean passage.

The Rainbow-the second to be opened in London-dated as far back as 1637. Here its proprietor, a certain James Farr, a barber, was,

in 1657, prevented by the Parish from "makinge and sellinge of a drinke called coffee, whereby in making the same he annoyeth his neighbours by evil smells.'

"Dicks". now an Italian restaurant may still be found at No. 8 entered by a passage.

"The Cock" alone survives one of the few ancient taverns remaining unaltered internally from the time of James I. The outside fell into the clutches of the Demon of Unrest in 1887, and was sent to the dumping ground to make room for what Hare calls "a ludicrous Temple Bar Memorial." But the inside fittings were rescued bodily, carried across Fleet Street, and set up in its new home, No. 22, a short distance from its old site at 201

not a renovation, nor a patching up, nor making one half of it new to match the old, but the putting together in a new room, the size of the old one, everything that the old one had contained. The old Jacobean fireplace, with its grate, mantel, fender and fire tongs and shovel, was set up intact; the same old settees were placed in the same relative positions as at No. 201; the same old prints and sketches, and in the same frames, were hung in their old panels on the walls, and the same cheap gas jets fastened to the well-smoked ceiling-to