Mr. Lorry had become the Doctor’s friend, and the

quiet street-corner was the sunny part of his life.

On this certain fine Sunday, Mr. Lorry walked towards Soho,

early in the afternoon, for three reasons of habit. Firstly, because,

on fine Sundays, he often walked out, before dinner, with the

Doctor and Lucie; secondly, because, on unfavourable Sundays,

he was accustomed to be with them as the family friend, talking,

reading, looking out of window, and generally getting through the

day; thirdly, because he happened to have his own little shrewd

doubts to solve, and knew how the ways of the Doctor’s household

pointed to that time as a likely time for solving them.

A quainter corner than the corner where the Doctor lived, was

not to be found in London. There was no way through it, and the

front windows of the Doctor’s lodgings commanded a pleasant

little vista of street that had a congenial air of retirement on it.

There were few buildings then, north of the Oxford-road, and

forest-trees flourished, and wild flowers grew, and the hawthorn

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blossomed, in the now vanished fields. As a consequence, country

airs circulated in Soho with vigorous freedom, instead of

languishing into the parish like stray paupers without a

settlement; and there was many a good south wall, not far off, on

which the peaches ripened in their season.

The summer light struck into the corner brilliantly in the

earlier part of the day; but, when the streets grew hot, the corner

was in shadow, though not in shadow so remote but that you could

see beyond it into a glare of brightness. It was a cool spot, staid but

cheerful, a wonderful place for echoes, and a very harbour from

the raging streets.

There ought to have been a tranquil bark in such an anchorage,

and there was. The Doctor occupied two floors of a large still

house, where several callings purported to be pursued by day, but

whereof little was audible any day, and which was shunned by all

of them at night. In a building at the back, attainable by a

courtyard where a plane-tree rustled its green leaves, churchorgans

claimed to be made, and silver to be chased, and likewise

gold to be beaten by some mysterious giant who had a golden arm

starting out of the wall of the front hallas if he had beaten

himself precious, and menaced a similar conversion of all visitors.

Very little of these trades, or of a lonely lodger rumoured to live

upstairs, or of a dim coach-trimming maker asserted to have a

counting-house below, was ever heard or seen. Occasionally, a

stray workman putting his coat on, traversed the hall, or a

stranger peered about there, or a distant clink was heard across

the courtyard, or a thump from the golden giant. These, however,

were only the exceptions required to prove the rule that the

sparrows in the plane-tree behind the house, and the echoes in the

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corner before it, had their own way from Sunday morning unto

Saturday night.