Then I walked out on Billingsgate Wharf and had a real thrill. This is where London began. It is probably the oldest wharf on the Thames. Old Geoffrey of Monmouth, who would have made a fine American reporter, says that it takes its name from Belin, King of the Britons four hundred years before Christ. Stowe thinks that it was once owned by a man called Biling. It is certain, however, that the Romans landed their furs and their wines here, and at this spot on the Thames the first imports of London were dumped, the first merchants gathered.
To the left I saw the bluish shadow of Tower Bridge. The brown Thames water licked the broad hull of a fish trawler. Crate after crate of herrings caught so far away in the North Sea were unloaded for London, and as I passed again through the ripe, rich tang of the market a man was buying lobsters which I suppose a lovely girl will enjoy as she makes eyes at someone over the rim of her champagne glass.
Haunted
Devonshire House is dead and gone. I hope that its name may be perpetuated by the new commercial building, but I do not know.
When the workmen were performing acute surgical operations on old Devonshire House I was interested to hear people, who knew the Duke quite well by his photographs, express intimate regret at this deed. "Dear old Devonshire House!" they said. "What a shame it is that these grand old...." And so on and so forth. They were wistful. They gave the impression that they knew the pink bedroom awfully well (don't you know); they that had lingered on every inch of the famous staircase. They were like people who mourned the downfall of the old home.
You see, for nearly five years Devonshire House was, in the name of charity, thrown open to the public, so that probably more people were acquainted with the geography of this mansion than with any other ducal house which has not become either an hotel or a museum. So:
"Poor old Devonshire House!"
"Yes, it looks just like a bombed château during the war!"
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