and her maid. These interesting passengers had recovered from the effects of the Channel passage, and were eating their lunch. The lady politely offered me some sandwiches. "No, thanks," I replied; "I shall lunch in London." This reminds me of a story I heard when I was in America, of two young English ladies arriving at New York. They immediately entered the Northern Express at the West Central. About 7 o'clock in the evening they arrived at Niagara—half an hour or so is given to the passengers to alight and look at the wonderful Falls. The gentleman who told me the story informed me that as the two ladies were getting back into the carriage he asked them if they were going to dine at once. They, ignorant of the vastness of the "gre—e—at country Amuraka," replied, "Oh, no, thanks, we are going to dine with our friends when we arrive. It can't be long now, we have been travelling so fast all the day!"
"And may I ask, young ladies, where your friends live?"
"We are going to an uncle who has been taken suddenly ill in San Francisco."
These young ladies would have had to wait certainly five days for their dinner—I only five hours.
The strange lady and I conversed a great deal on various topics. By degrees she discovered that I was a young artist, friendless, and on his way to the great city to battle with fortune. I may have told her of my history, of my youthful ambitions and my professional plans—anyway she told me of hers, and, while her maid was lazily slumbering, she confessed to me her troubles.
"My story," she said, "is a sad one. I am of good family, and I married a well-known professional London man. He turned out to be a gambler, and ran through my money, and I returned to my parents. I have left them this morning again, and, like you, I am now on my way to London to start in life, and if possible make my own living. You see my appearance is not altogether unprepossessing" (she was tall, singularly handsome, a refined woman of style) … I bowed … "Well, I am also fortunate in having a good voice, it is well-trained, and I am going to London to sing as a paid professional in the houses in which I have formerly been a guest."
I sympathised with her, and she continued, weeping, to relate to me events of her unhappy married life until we arrived at Euston. I saw her and her maid into a four-wheeler, and I saw their luggage on the top. She gave me her card with her parents' address in London written on it, and requested that I would write to her at that address, as she would like to hear how I got on in London. I never saw her again. But I did write home, and found there was such a lady, her family were well-known society people in Ireland, and that her marriage had not been a happy one.
After three years in London I ran over to Ireland to see my parents. On my return I seemed to miss the charming companion of my journey over the same ground three years previously. Two uninteresting men were in the carriage: a typical German professor on tour, and communicative; and a typical English gentleman, uncommunicative. As the journey was a long one the German smoked, ate and drank himself to sleep, and after some hours the other man and I exchanged a word. The fact is I thought I knew his face—I told him so. He thought he knew mine. "Had we gone to school together?" "No." He was at least ten years my senior. It happened he had been to school with my half-brother (my father was married twice—I am the youngest son of his second family). We chatted freely about each other's family and on various topics, including the sleeping Teuton in the corner. I incidentally mentioned my last journey. The lady interested him, so I told him of the way in which she confessed to me. I waxed eloquent over her wrongs. He got still more excited as I described her husband as she described him to me; and as the train rolled into Euston, he said, "Well, you know who I am, I know who you are—I'll tell you one thing more: that woman's story is perfectly true—I'm her husband!"
That was one of the most extraordinary coincidences which ever happened to me. Three years after meeting the wife, over the same journey, at the same time of the year, I meet the husband; and I had never been the journey in the meantime.
CHAPTER II.
BOHEMIAN CONFESSIONS.
I arrive in London—A Rogue and Vagabond—Two Ladies—Letters of Introduction—Bohemia—A Distinguished Member—My Double—A Rara Avis—The Duke of Broadacres—The Savages—A Souvenir—Portraits of the Past—J. L. Toole—Art and Artists—Sir Spencer Wells—John Pettie—Milton's Garden.
I did not make my appearance in London with merely the proverbial half-crown in my pocket, nor was I breathlessly expectant to find the streets paved with gold. Thanks chiefly to my savings in Dublin, my balance at my bankers' was sufficient to keep me for at least a year, and as soon as the editors returned from their summer holidays I was fortunate enough to procure commissions, which have been pouring in pretty steadily ever since.
CARICATURE OF MYSELF,
DRAWN WHEN I FIRST
ARRIVED IN LONDON.
It was with a strange feeling that I found myself for the first time in London, among four millions of people, with not one of whom I could claim acquaintance, and I think it will not be out of place if I here offer a hint which may possibly be of use to other young men who are placed in similar circumstances. Upon first coming to the metropolis, then, let them invariably act, in as much as it is possible, as if they were Londoners old and seasoned. To stand gazing at St. Paul's with mouth agape and eyes astare, or to enquire your way to the National Gallery or Madame Tussaud's, is a sure means of finding yourself ere long in the hands of the unscrupulous and designing. For my part, as I took my first admiring peep at the masterpiece of Sir Christopher, I whistled to myself with an air of nonchalance, and as I passed down Fleet Street I made a point of nodding familiarly to the passers-by as if I were already a frequent habitué of the thoroughfare of letters. Did I find myself accosted by any particularly ingenuous stranger asking his way, I always promptly told him to go on as straight as ever he could go—a piece of advice which, coming from one so young, I think was highly proper and creditable, whatever may have proved its value in some cases from a topographical point of view. On the other hand, the following incident will serve to show the prudence of exercising due caution in addressing strangers oneself.
Upon the evening of my arrival in the big city I had dined at the London Restaurant, which was situate at the corner of Chancery Lane and Fleet Street, in the premises now occupied by Messrs. Partridge and Cooper (the name of this firm must not be taken as an indication of the nature of my repast), and, fired with the curiosity of youth, I mounted the knifeboard of an omnibus bound for Hyde Park. Arrived at the famous statue of Wellington astride the impossible horse which has since ambled off to the seclusion of Aldershot, and which at once recalled to my mind the inimitable drawings of that infamous quadruped by John Leech, an artist who had done as much to familiarise me with London scenes and characters with his pencil as had Dickens with the pen, I happened to ask a sturdy artisan who was sitting beside me whether this was Hyde Park Corner.
"'Ide Park!" he muttered. "'Oo are you a-tryin' ter git at? 'Ide Park! None o' yer 'anky panky with me, my covey!"
I forthwith slipped off that 'bus, not a little nettled that the first person to whom I had spoken in London should have taken me for a rogue and a vagabond.
I had been fortunate enough to secure quarters which had been recommended to me in a comfortable boarding-house in one of the old-fashioned Inns in Holborn—Thavies' Inn—in which, I was informed, whether accurately or not I do not pretend to know, the Knight Templars of old had once resided. There were no Knight Templars there when I arrived, but in their stead I
