“I should like to go very much. I was never in a studio since I had my portrait painted. I’ll ask my father, but he doesn’t go out very often.”
“Oh, I know you can get him to come, so that’s a promise.”
In the hall his mother handed Barney a cheque.
“Be sure you go at once to Sartwell,” she said, “and see that you don’t bungle the business a second time.”
And yet the poor boy had merely pretended that her former orders had been carried out! Barney made no remark about the inconsistency of woman. He kissed her on both cheeks, as a dutiful son should do, and departed.
CHAPTER VII.
In almost any other country than England the name by which the evil-smelling cul-de-sac off Light Street was known might be supposed to have been given it by some cynical humourist. It was called Rose Garden Court. As there is a reason for almost everything in this world, the chances are that once upon a time a garden stood there, and that roses probably bloomed in it. The entrance to the court was through an archway, over which, on the Light Street side, was the name of the court. At the right hand of this tunnel stood the “Rose and Crown,” locally known as the “pub,” and the door of the jug and bottle department opened into the passage, which was convenient for the inhabitants of the court. On the left of the archway there was a second-hand clothing shop, the wares, exceedingly second hand, hanging in tattered festoons about the door.
A street lamp stood at the edge of the pavement, opposite the entrance to the court, and threw its rays under the archway, which somewhat feeble illumination was supplemented by a gas jet over the door of the jug and bottle department. At the blind end of Rose Garden Court stood another lamp post. The court was unevenly paved with large slabs of stone, sloppy, as a rule, from the overflow of a tap which supplied the inhabitants with water.