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It is one of the canons of correct conduct, scrupulously adhered to (when convenient) by all well-bred persons, that an acquaintance should be initiated by a proper introduction To this salutary rule, which I have disregarded to the extent of an entire chapter, I now hasten to conform; and the more so inasmuch as nearly two years have passed since my first informal appearance

Permit me, then, to introduce Paul Berkeley, MB, etc, recently--very recently--qualified, faultlessly attired in the professional frock-coat and tall hat, and, at thewith anxious care a perilous strait between a roell-filled coal-sacks and a colossal tray piled high with kidney potatoes

The passage of this strait landed me on the terra firma of Fleur-de-Lys Court, where I halted for alist There was only one , and he lived at 49 Nevill's Court, wherever thatdeity of the coal shop

"Can you direct me, Mrs Jablett, to Nevill's Court?"

She could and she did, grasping me confidentially by the ar a shaking forefinger at the dead wall ahead "Nevill's Court," said Mrs Jablett, "is a alley, and you goes into it through a archway It turns out of Fetter Lane on the right 'and as you goes up, oppersight Brealad that the uely conscious of a growing appetite and of a desire to wash in hot water

The practice which I was conducting was not aret's man of irrepressible spirits and indifferent physique, who had started only the day before for a trip down the Mediterranean on board a tra's round, was in soraphical discovery

I walked on briskly up Fetter Lane until a narrow, arched opening, bearing the superscription "Nevill's Court," arrested my steps, and here I turned to encounter one of those surprises that lie in wait for the wanderer in London byways Expecting to find the grey squalor of the ordinary London court, I looked out from under the shadow of the arch past a row of decent little shops through a vista full of light and colour--a vista of ancient, ware In the heart of London a tree is always a delightful surprise; but here were not only trees, but bushes and even flowers The narrow footas bordered by little gardens, which, with their wooden palings and well-kept shrubs, gave to the place an air of quaint and sober rusticity; and even as I entered a bevy of work-girls, with gaily-coloured blouses and hair aflaround like the wild flowers that spangle a suerow