We stopped at the Greyhound, at Croydon, where the two good little mares were sponged and petted and fed, after which, at an easier pace, we made our way through Norbury and Streatham.  At last the fields grew fewer and the walls longer.  The outlying villas closed up thicker and thicker, until their shoulders met, and we were driving between a double line of houses with garish shops at the corners, and such a stream of traffic as I had never seen, roaring down the centre.  Then suddenly we were on a broad bridge with a dark coffee-brown river flowing sulkily beneath it, and bluff-bowed barges drifting down upon its bosom.  To right and left stretched a broken, irregular line of many-coloured houses winding along either bank as far as I could see.

“That’s the House of Parliament, nephew,” said my uncle, pointing with his whip, “and the black towers are Westminster Abbey.  How do, your Grace?  How do?  That’s the Duke of Norfolk—­the stout man in blue upon the swish-tailed mare.  Now we are in Whitehall.  There’s the Treasury on the left, and the Horse Guards, and the Admiralty, where the stone dolphins are carved above the gate.”

I had the idea, which a country-bred lad brings up with him, that London was merely a wilderness of houses, but I was astonished now to see the green slopes and the lovely spring trees showing between.

“Yes, those are the Privy Gardens,” said my uncle, “and there is the window out of which Charles took his last step on to the scaffold.  You wouldn’t think the mares had come fifty miles, would you?  See how les petites cheries step out for the credit of their master.  Look at the barouche, with the sharp-featured man peeping out of the window.  That’s Pitt, going down to the House.  We are coming into Pall Mall now, and this great building on the left is Carlton House, the Prince’s Palace.  There’s St. James’s, the big, dingy place with the clock, and the two red-coated sentries before it.  And here’s the famous street of the same name, nephew, which is the very centre of the world, and here’s Jermyn Street opening out of it, and finally, here’s my own little box, and we are well under the five hours from Brighton Old Square.”

CHAPTER IX—­WATIER’S

My uncle’s house in Jermyn Street was quite a small one—­five rooms and an attic.  “A man-cook and a cottage,” he said, “are all that a wise man requires.”  On the other hand, it was furnished with the neatness and taste which belonged to his character, so that his most luxurious friends found something in the tiny rooms which made them discontented with their own sumptuous mansions.  Even the attic, which had been converted into my bedroom, was the most perfect little bijou attic that could possibly be imagined.  Beautiful and valuable knick-knacks filled every corner of every apartment, and the house had become a perfect miniature museum which would have delighted a virtuoso.  My uncle explained the presence of all these pretty things with a shrug of his shoulders and a wave of his hands.  “They are des petites cadeaux,” said he, “but it would be an indiscretion for me to say more.”