But what is that? It looks like a large game of scratch-cradle—but no, it isn't—it is merely the top of a gas factory. We wonder if they take off the lids of those immense black cauldrons, when they want to see how the pot boils?
Behold how contentedly that man is smoking his pipe, with his bare arms resting on the parapet of the railway, as if it were a cushion. The train rushes screaming by him, but not an eye winks, not a nerve shakes. The pipe still hangs from the lips of that iron man—well adapted to live so close and be, a railway sleeper. By-the-bye, it cannot be pleasant to have an engine almost touching your bedroom window whilst you are shaving!
Look to your right, you will see the Houses of Parliament, the Barrycade of Westminster that has now been up for six years, and likely to remain up for thirty more. The bird you see on the top is a crane. It is sacred hereabouts, and is highway robbery if any one attempts to dislodge it.
The Thames is worth looking at; but you must be quick, for unless you look down that narrow street before the train passes it, you will not see it. The silver speck—like a half-crown—you see at the end of that lane is the Thames.
Turn quick to the left; you will perceive what an Englishman most delights in—a fight.
Bah! you're too late; the Policeman has emerged from some invisible spot, and the fight is adjourned. One man in blue disperses five hundred Britons.
You will see plenty of English Interiors on each side of the country. They display all varieties of paper, mostly at a halfpenny a yard. How desolate the fireplaces look, and yet they are interesting, as the last abiding-places of the grate must always be.
