George had begun to look up Chelsea in the office library, and as Mr.
Enwright happened to be an active member of the Society for the Survey
of the Memorials of Greater London, the library served him well. In an
hour and a half he had absorbed something of the historical topography
of Chelsea. He knew that the Fulham Road upon which he was now walking
was a boundary of Chelsea. He knew that the Queen's Elm public-house had
its name from the tradition that Elizabeth had once sheltered from a
shower beneath an elm tree which stood at that very corner. He knew that
Chelsea had been a 'village of palaces,' and what was the function of
the Thames in the magnificent life of that village. The secret residence
of Turner in Chelsea, under the strange _alias_ of Admiral Booth,
excited George's admiration; he liked the idea of hidden retreats and
splendid, fanciful pseudonyms. But the master-figure of Chelsea for
George was Sir Thomas More. He could see Sir Thomas More walking in his
majestic garden by the river with the King's arm round his neck, and
Holbein close by, and respectful august prelates and a nagging wife in
the background. And he could see Sir Thomas More taking his barge for
the last journey to the Tower, and Sir Thomas More's daughter coming
back in the same barge with her father's head on board. Curious! He
envied Sir Thomas More.

"Darned bad tower for a village of palaces!" he thought, not of the
Tower of London, but of the tower of the Workhouse which he was now
approaching. He thought he could design an incomparably better tower
than that. And he saw himself in the future, the architect of vast
monuments, strolling in a grand garden of his own at evening with other
distinguished and witty persons.

But there were high-sounding names in the history of Chelsea besides
those of More and Turner. Not names of people! Cremorne and Ranelagh!