of an oath charged with dynamite - (hats and caps set it off) - - a closer knitting of the crowd, and I was about to waive my paint rag in surrender, when a fat man in a white apron forced his way to my side.

"This 'ere carriage comp'ny be blowed!" he cried. "He don't hev none- and won't to-day cause it's Saturday. If ye want to move yer taxi in front of my door, Guvnor, ye can and welcome. I keep this public," and he pointed to a barroom ten feet farther along the sidewalk, "and if ye say what'll ye hev, I'll bring it out to ye."

Both sides ceased firing.

Evins stepped up and saluted.

"This is a friend of mine, sir

very perticular friend.

I'll move her if ye don't mind," and he slid in behind the steering wheel. "How's that? Can ye see all right? Some o' these here one and six fellows put on more airs than a Lord Mayor." All of which leads me to believe that the manners of those now living on Jermyn Street have more or less degenerated since the days when Henry Jermyn, Earl of St. Albans, laid out the roadway in 1667.*

For great and distinguished people-sometimes in periwigs, sometimes in knee breeches- have taken the air up and down these narrow sidewalks. Colonel Churchill (afterward the great Duke of Marlborough); Gray the poet; Sir Isaac Newton; Sir Walter Scott, who was seized with his last illness at No. 76 (now Turkish Baths); Sydney Smith, who occupied No. 81, as well as Secretary Craggs, Addison's friend, who died here in 1721.

And then there was Mr. William Makepeace Thackeray, than whom no finer gentleman ever put foot on sole leather,

and whose home may still be seen some eight or ten doors from Regent Street within a step of the Geological Museum.

"Knocking at the private entrance," says Mr. Vizetelly, in speaking of his visit to Mr. Thackeray in this very house, "a young lodging-house slavey, in answer to my inquiries, made me follow her upstairs, I did so, to the very top of the house, and after my card had been handed in, I was asked to enter the front apartment, where a tall, slim individual between thirty and thirty-five years of age, with a pleasant, smiling countenance, and a bridgeless nose, and clad in a dressing-gown of decided Parisian cut, rose from a small table standing close to the near window to receive me. When he stood up the low pitch of the room caused him to look even taller than he really was, and his actual height was well over six feet. The apartment was an exceedingly plainly furnished bedroom, with common rush-seated chairs, and painted French bedstead, and with neither lookingglass nor prints on the bare, cold, cheerless-looking walls. On the table from which Mr. Thackeray had risen a white cloth was spread, on which was a frugal breakfast tray — a cup of chocolate and some dry toast; and huddled together at the other end were writing materials, two or three numbers of Fraser's Magazine, and a few slips of manuscript. I presented Mr. Nickisson's letter- (Nickisson was then the editor of Fraser's Magazine, having succeeded Dr. Maginn) and explained the object of my visit, when Mr. Thackeray at once undertook to write (for the forthcoming Pictorial Times). . . So satisfied was he with the three guineas offered him for a couple of columns weekly,

that he jocularly expressed himself willing to sign an agreement for life upon these terms.”

And here upon Jermyn Street, if I may be permitted in such company, no less a person than the worthy scribe himself may always be found, whenever he is in London, at his friend Jules's, opposite Prince's.

Here, too, lived Colonel Newcome and Bobbachy Bawhawder, whose adventures are chronicled in "The Lion Huntress of Belgravia," as well as "Henry Esmond" and many others.

I quote from "Esmond," not only because Addison comes into the narrative, but because I have a strong conviction, after looking the ground over, that the hat and cap shop, occupied by the gentleman in spats, covers the site of the bookstore referred to in the text.

"Quitting the Guard-table one Sunday afternoon, when by chance Dick had a sober fit upon him, he and his friend (Henry Esmond) were making their way down Germain Street, and Dick all of a sudden left his companion's arm, and ran after a gentleman who was poring over a folio volume at the bookshop near to St. James's church.

"Harry Esmond, come hither,' cries out Dick. "Thou hast heard me talk over and over again of my dearest Joe, my guardian angel?'

"Indeed,' says Mr. Esmond, with a bow, 'it is not from you only that I have learnt to admire Mr. Addison. We loved good poetry at Cambridge as well as at Oxford; and I have some of yours by heart, though I have put on a red coat.' "O qui canoro blandius Orpheo vocale ducis carmen;" shall I go on, sir?' says Mr. Esmond, who,