The policeman on duty at the door, whose mission it was to keep the pathway clear, now sallied forth from the portico and promenaded in the little crowd, gently pushing his way amongst them with a monotonous cry of "Move on, there, please--move on!" Joyce noticed that his companion regarded this policeman with a half-defiant, half-pitying air, and the old man said to him, as they resumed their walk--
"That's another of the effects of our blessed civilization! That gawk in blucher boots and a felt helmet--that machine in a shoddy great-coat, who can scarcely tell B from a bull's foot, and yet has the power to tell you and me and other men, who pay for the paving-rate--ay, and for the support of such scum as he is, for the matter of that--to move on! Suppose you think I'm a rum un, eh?" said Mr. Byrne, suddenly changing his voice of disgust into a bantering tone. "Not seen many like me before; don't want to see any more, perhaps?"
"I don't say that," said Joyce, with a half smile; "but I confess the sentiments are new to me, and----"
"Brought up in the country; my lord or the squire, eh? So pleased to receive notice coming out of church, 'plucks the slavish hat from the villager's head,' and all that! Sorry I've not a manorial hall to ask you into, but such as it is you're welcome. Hold hard, here."
The old man stopped before a private door in a small street of very small shops running between Leicester Square and the Haymarket, took out a key, and stood back for his companion to pass before him into a dark and narrow passage. When the door was closed behind him, Mr. Byrne struck a light, and commenced making his way up the narrow staircase. Joyce followed him flight after flight, and past landing after landing, until at length the top story was reached. Then Mr. Byrne took out another key, and, unlocking the door immediately in front of him, entered the room and bade his companion follow him.
Walter Joyce found himself in a long low room, with a truckle bed in one corner, bookshelves ranged round three sides, and in the middle, over which the curtains were now drawn, a large square table, with an array of knives and scissors upon it, a heap of wool in one corner, and an open case of needles of various kinds, polished bright and shining. On one end of the mantelpiece stood a glass case containing a short-horned white owl, stuffed, and looking wonderfully sagacious; on the other a cock, with full crop and beady eye, and open bill, with one leg advanced, full of self-sufficiency and conceit. Over the mantlepiece, in a long low case, was an admirably carried out bit of Byrne's art, representing the death-struggles of a heron struck by a hawk. Both birds were stuffed, of course, but the characteristics of each had been excellently preserved; the delicate heron lay completely at the mercy of his active little antagonist, whose "pounce" had evidently just been made, and who with beak and talons was settling his prey.
While Joyce was looking round at these things, the old man had lit a lamp suspended from the ceiling, and another standing on the square work-table; had opened a cupboard, and from it had produced a black bottle, two tumblers, and a decanter of water; had filled and lit a mighty pipe, and had motioned his companion to make free with the liquor and with the contents of an ancient-looking tobacco-jar, which he pushed towards him.
"Smoke, man!" said he, puffing out a thin line of vapour through his almost closed lips, and fanning it away lazily with his hand--"smoke!--that's one thing they can't keep from us, though they'd like. My lord should puff at his havannah while the commonalty, the plebs, the profanum vulgus,who are hated and driven away, should 'exhale mundungus, ill-perfuming weed!' Thank God we've altered all that since poor John Philips's day; he'd get better change for his Splendid Shilling now than ever he did in his time, eh? Talking Greek to you, am I? or worse than Greek, for that you'd understand, I dare say, and you'll never understand my old mutterings and quotations. You can read Greek?"
"Yes," Joyce said; "I am reckoned a tolerable Grecian."
"Indeed!" said the old man, with a grin; "ah! no doubt you were an honour to your college."