twists up to the floor above, where there is a cook-range and funny-shaped "coppers" of pottery, in which the famous pudding is cooked; to say nothing of the cramped, tumbleddown rooms above where certain choice spirits, members of several clubs, still meet on certain nights in the week and hold high revel-just as happened, I dare say, in Mr. Thackeray's time. I ordered a chop, of course, and a mug of 'arf and 'arf, and found a table for Evins where he too could eat and drink at his leisure the taxi having been backed up behind a pile of brick where Bobby said he would keep an eye on it. I had to play havoc however with the arrangement of the room before I opened my easel. There were too many things in one place - mostly tables, and, as I explained, I could see nothing of the interior either over or under them. Everybody came at once to my assistance. The tables were picked up bodily, the settees shoved back, and a way cleared for my stool and easel. The news that an American was taking notes, with an eye to their being printed, including lifelike portraits of the staff, had gone through the place like wildfire. At the first stroke of my coal, business of every kind came to a standstill. Even the trickle of froth, flowing from the big keg of ale on the counter of the small bar, dried up. Soon proprietor, head waiter, all the subs, both of the barmaids, and five minutes later as soon as the news reached the upper floor - two of the cooks - fat comfortable cooks, with the marks of their profession spattered over their persons were grouped around my easel. Some were standing on settees, others on tables-wherever they could see best. Even the few remaining guests (it was now after three o'clock) let their steaks and kidneys get cold and their mugs "go dead" to watch the process. I "sat them up," of course, when it was all over and was told to come again and welcome, and not to forget to send a copy of the newspaper, Evins gathering up as we left the addresses of a number of individuals, male and female, who would be much "obleeged" if I would be so kind." Hurry up, you belated ones who have not yet seen the Cheshire Cheese. It is the last of the Inns -the oldest relic of its kind in all London. S CHAPTER XIV FLEET STREET AND ST. PAUL'S TOPPING my taxi, as I did, on the edge of the decline that sweeps toward old St. Paul's, watching the rush and choke of the traffic, it was hard for me to believe that right under my wheels flowed the Fleet Ditch - the greatest of London's sewers. What goes on down below the crust of asphalt is just as well hidden from sight. The merciful rain, no doubt, helps in the cleansing, and so does the emptying of countless tubs - the Englishman being the best scrubbed biped on earth. What goes on above is in clear sight every hour of the day and night, for nobody ever goes to bed in Fleet Street. Here centre the thousand wires that bring the news of the world to as many sleepless presses, and here the rumble of delivery wagons, loaded with tons of journals, is heard from midnight to dawn. It has always been the same story. Many of the presses of the great publishers and printers have dated back into the last century and before. The printing office of Richard Tottel, law stationers in the time of Henry VIII pounded away here. At the angle of Chancery Lane gate Izaak Walton had his "Compleat Angler" printed. Hard by lived Drayton and Abraham Cowley, whose father was a type |