AUTHOR OF "A LONDON POSY," "THE LOITERING HIGHWAY," ETC. WITH 8 ILLUSTRATIONS   MILLS & BOON, LIMITED 49 RUPERT STREET LONDON, W. 1 Published 1921 FROM MILLS & BOON'S LIST — BY CHELSEA REACH By R EGINALD B LUNT With 24 Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net MY SOUTH AFRICAN YEAR By C HARLES D AWBARN With 30 Illustrations from Photographs. Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net SOMERSET NEIGHBOURS By A LFRED P ERCIVALL Demy 8vo. 8s. 6d. net ABRAHAM LINCOLN By F RANK I LSLEY P ARADISE With a Fronti

PEOPLE who are kind enough to read my stories sometimes tell me they like them on account of their London atmosphere. This is reassuring, because London is, to me, what "King Charles' head" was to "Mr. Dick," and when my publisher suggested that I should write this volume I mounted my hobby-horse with glee. The objects of the journeys recorded were chosen haphazard. With a myriad places clamouring for notice, and each place brimful of interest, one takes the first that comes, reflecting that wha

WHEN the Countess of Corbridge sent the quarterly cheque for fifty pounds to her brother, the Hon. George Tallenach, she always addressed the envelope to Carrington Mansions, Mayfair. As a matter of fact, the Honourable George lived in Carrington Mews, Shepherd Market, and derived a certain ironic pleasure from the contemplation of his sister's snobbishness. But then the Honourable George had never acted up to the traditions of his family. His Bohemianism, coupled with an inability to settle dow

C ARRINGTON M EWS, S HEPHERD M ARKET, 13th September . DEAR Agatha,—I've got a new pal! Her name may have appeared in my letters before, in connection with the histories of my neighbours in the other flats, the mending of my vests and pants, and cheap lunches at home when she provides me with a portion of her beef-steak pie for ninepence. Her name is Darling, which necessitates the painstaking use of the "Mrs." for fear of a misunderstanding. She is a widow, and a person of kindly sympathies but

C ARRINGTON M EWS, S HEPHERD M ARKET, 24th September . DEAR Agatha,—I was glad to hear, by the way, that you had been incited to unearth Pepys from a neglected corner of your bookcase. The old chap's vitality is infectious. One can scarcely turn a leaf anywhere but one is interested, amused, or receives the benefit of a shock to one's sense of the proprieties. This morning I opened him haphazard and read, "So over the fields to Southwark. I spent half an hour in St. Mary Overy's Church, where ar

C ARRINGTON M EWS, 7th October . DEAR Agatha,—I'm glad you were interested in the account of my outing with Mrs. Darling. Your reference to Verdant Green was apposite but not quite kind. I bear no malice, however: witness the continuation of the history of my wanderings. I have been reading "Pepys' Diary" for what Mrs. Darling would call the "umpteenth" time. Strangely enough, I had never visited his tomb, and it occurred to me that Mrs. Darling and I might make a day of it, starting with Banksi

C ARRINGTON M EWS, 1st November . DEAR Agatha,—Yes, I am sure you would find the study of Pepys a profitable one. Why not read him to the Mothers' Meeting instead of "The Parent's Friend" or "How to Keep your Husband out of the 'Pub'"? The old chap can be as smug and moral as Sandford and Merton, and his instructiveness is always involuntary. But to the continuation of the story of my wanderings. Smithfield, apart from its terrible associations with the Christian martyrs, is not a pleasant place

C ARRINGTON M EWS, 13th November . DEAR Agatha,—I quite agree with you that it isn't altogether a kind thing to drag these poor old ghosts out of their hiding-places and talk scandal about them. One pictures them blinking their dust-dimmed eyes in the strong light of to-day and resenting the conduct of Paul Prys like myself. But one must take the bad with the good, and if with stories of heroism, human kindness, and tenderness one unearths a good deal that is unworthy, one cannot do better than

C ARRINGTON M EWS, S HEPHERD M ARKET, November 25th . DEAR Agatha,—I anticipated your wish that I should make Chelsea the object of my next pilgrimage. Mrs. D. and I went there yesterday. The gulls were very busy about nothing over the river, and they harmonised with the colour scheme of the afternoon. Pale sunshine, a sky of washed-out blue, a silver river, wharves, and leafless trees in Battersea Park veiled by a curtain which was part autumn mist and part smoke from the factory chimneys on th

C ARRINGTON M EWS, S HEPHERD M ARKET, 6th December . DEAR Agatha,—Mrs. Darling has announced that she doesn't want to go to any more dead people's houses. She says they give her a "nasty, sleepy feelin'". She is, moreover, of the opinion that, in these days, when living people can't get homes, it's downright wicked to waste bricks and mortar on ghosts. She said she wanted to go to St. Paul's Churchyard to see the shops, and in a moment of weak amiability I consented to accompany her. If my good

C ARRINGTON M EWS, S HEPHERD M ARKET, 19th December . MY Dear Agatha,—I am sorry you accuse me of levity. It wasn't in human nature to resist the unique opportunity for mischief provided by the meeting between Katherine and Mrs. D. I followed it up with lunch in Curzon Street, during which I discovered in myself a quite new and marked talent for fiction. I won't say more out of consideration for your scruples, but I may mention it's a long while since I had such an excellent lunch. It must be ma

C ARRINGTON M EWS, S HEPHERD M ARKET, 20th January . DEAR Agatha,—Mrs. D. and I have been exploring Soho this afternoon. I started out with the intention of localising certain houses in certain streets associated with men of letters, but, alas! it was a question of "change" ( without decay) "in all around I see". Old landmarks gone, and brand new buildings, mostly offices, in their place. Still, there is enough left to make a visit well worth while, and the weather was perfect. Frowsy old Soho w

C ARRINGTON M EWS, S HEPHERD M ARKET, 17th February . MY Dear Agatha,—So you, too, remembered! Strange, after our having overlooked the anniversary for so long! The violets you picked for me in your garden that afternoon scented my room for days. Thank you. Acting on your advice, I took Mrs. D. to the London Museum yesterday. You are quite right, the place was made for children, and the old lady thoroughly enjoyed herself. The basement, with its long stone-paved corridors, its gloom (dispelled,

C ARRINGTON M EWS, S HEPHERD M ARKET, 24th February . MY Dear Agatha,—To take up my story where I dropped it the other night.... You can approach the "Cheshire Cheese" either by the front door in Wine Office Court or by the back door in Cheshire Court. I prefer the tunnel-like passage leading to the back door, it seems a more fit means of transporting one from Fleet Street of to-day to the Fleet Street of 1667. Mrs. D.'s visions of bread and cheese gave place to something more appetising as the

WHEN the Honourable George Tallenach issued from the dark doorway of Carrington Mews into the evening light of Shepherd Market he had no premonition of having come out to meet anything unusual, unless it were the beauty of the close of that perfect spring day. He stood for a moment under the flickering gas lamp twirling the letter he carried between his thumbs, then he crossed the cobbles towards the little shop at the corner where he was in the habit of buying his morning and evening papers. He

C ARRINGTON M EWS, 12th March . DEAR Agatha,—The letter you sent in answer to my wire has remained too long unanswered, but I have, since Katherine's death, been immersed in correspondence of a most uninteresting and tedious description. The work entailed in the settling of affairs is colossal, and when I haven't been writing tiresome business epistles, or others even more tiresome to people who never remembered my existence when I was a poor man, the lawyers have had me in their octopus-like cl