Part 6 (1/2)

”Colonel Shook,” I said, ”you need not bother about this friend ofto the Confederate service He is teaching school over here at Beech Grove and engaged to be irls If you carry hi line, and wefor us at the ----'s Leave him to me and I will be answerable” Then I left hi, and don't feel entirely sure of o”

We thanked hiood-bys of the asseot to our horses, rode away, and that night I was at our rendezvous to tell the tale to those of my comrades who had arrived before me

Colonel Shook and I met after the war at a Grand Army reunion where I was billed to speak and to which he introduced s: ”I do believe that when he told ood Union man he told at least half the truth”

Chapter the Fourth

I Go to London--Am Introduced to a Notable Set--Huxley, Spencer, Mill and Tyndall--Artee Club

I

The fall of Atlanta after a siege of nearly two htful people, the sure precursor of the fall of the dooard for General Hood, but it was my belief that neither he nor any other soldier could save the day, and being out of co no h another winter--especially an advance into Tennessee upon Nashville--I wrote to an old friend offor a job He answered that if I would co and take the editorshi+p of the paper he would make me a present of half of it--a proposal so opportune and teht hours later saw me in the capital of Alabama

I was acco after our arrival, by chance I came across a printed line which advertised a rooentlemen,” with the curious affix for those tihtupon one of the nearby streets a distinguished gentleman in uniform came to the door, and, acquainted with my business, he said, ”Ah, that is an affair of lish Presently there appeared a beautiful lady, likewise English and as obviously a gentlewoman, and an hour later my friend Roberts and I moved in The incident proved in entleeon He e ca of shi+p at Missolonghi in 1823; had as a lad attended the poet and he in his last illness and been in at the death, seeing the club foot when the body was prepared for burial His as adorable There were two girls and two boys Tostory short, Albert Roberts hters, his brother the other; the lads growing up to be successful and distinguished men--one a naval admiral, the other a railway president

When, just after the war, I was going abroad, Mrs Scott said: ”I have a brother living in London to whoive you a letter”

II

Upon the deck of the steamer bound from New York to London direct, as we,a last look at the receding Aentlely French We had under our escort a French governess returning to Paris In a twinkle she and this gentleman had struck up an acquaintance, and much to my displeasure she introduced him to me as ”Monsieur Mahoney” I was somewhat mollified when later ere made acquainted with Madame Mahoney

I was not at all preconceived in his favor, nor did Monsieur Mahoney, upon nearer approach, conciliate my simple taste In person, manners and apparel he was quite beyond me Mrs Mahoney, however, as we soon called her, was a dear, whole-souled, traveled, unaffected New England wo hi a full beard He said it would never do, carried me perforce below, and cut it as I have worn it ever since The day before ere to dock he took ue which thirty years in Algiers, where he had been consul, and a dozen in Paris as a gentle friend, I observe that you are shy of strangers, but my wife and I have taken a shi+ne to you and the 'Princess',” as he called Mrs Watterson, ”and if you will allow us, we can be of soet to town”

Certainly there was no help for it I was too ill of the long crossing to oppose hih Level for Fenchurch Street, at Fenchurch Street a cab for the West End--Mr Mahoney bossing the job--and finally, in s, ere settled in Jer Lady Eleon and mother of the President of the Royal Acadeuished artistic set

It was great It was glorious At last ere in London--the dream of my literary ambitions I have since lived much in this wondrous city and in many parts of it between Hyde Park Corner, the heart of May Fair, to the east end of Bloomsbury under the very sound of Bow Bells All the way as it were from Tyburn Tree that was, and the Marble Arch that is, to Charing Cross and the Hay Market This were not toPiccadilly and the Strand

In childhood I was obsessed by the immensity, the atmosphere and the mystery of London Its nomenclature embedded itself in ate and Blackfriars; Bishopgate, within, and Bishopgate, without; Threadneedle Street and Wapping-Old-Stairs; the Inns of Court where Jarndyce struggled with Jarndyce, and the taverns where the Mark Tapleys, the Captain Costigans and the Dolly Vardens consorted

Alike in winter fog and surew to know and love it, and those that may be called its dra procession led by Jack Sheppard, dick Turpin and Jonathan Wild the Great Inevitably I sought their haunts--and they were not all gone in those days; the Bull-and-Gate in Holborn, whither Mr Tom Jones repaired on his arrival in town, and the White Hart Tavern, where Mr Pickwick fell in with Mr Saions about Leicester Fields and Russell Square sacred to the memory of Captain Booth and the lovely Amelia and Becky Sharp; where Garrick drank tea with Dr Johnson and Henry Esmond tippled with Sir Richard Steele

There was yet a Pu Oxford Street where Mantalini and De Quincy loitered: and Covent Garden and Drury Lane

Evans' Coffee House, or shall I say the Cave of Harmony, and The cock and the Cheshi+re Cheese were near at hand for refreshreeable society of Daniel Defoe and Joseph Addison, with Oliver Goldshostly glasses amid the punch fumes and tobacco smoke In short I knew London when it was still Old London--the knowledge of Teress and the pickaxe of the builder had got in their nefarious work

III