'Well, well,' said Mr Judkin. 'The next time he calls ask him to step
into my room. It is only proper he should be warned.'



CHAPTER VII. In Which William Dent Pitman takes Legal Advice

Norfolk Street, King's Road--jocularly known among Mr Pitman's lodgers
as 'Norfolk Island'--is neither a long, a handsome, nor a pleasing
thoroughfare. Dirty, undersized maids-of-all-work issue from it in
pursuit of beer, or linger on its sidewalk listening to the voice of
love. The cat's-meat man passes twice a day. An occasional organ-grinder
wanders in and wanders out again, disgusted. In holiday-time the
street is the arena of the young bloods of the neighbourhood, and
the householders have an opportunity of studying the manly art of
self-defence. And yet Norfolk Street has one claim to be respectable,
for it contains not a single shop--unless you count the public-house at
the corner, which is really in the King's Road.

The door of No. 7 bore a brass plate inscribed with the legend 'W. D.
Pitman, Artist'. It was not a particularly clean brass plate, nor was
No. 7 itself a particularly inviting place of residence. And yet it
had a character of its own, such as may well quicken the pulse of
the reader's curiosity. For here was the home of an artist--and a
distinguished artist too, highly distinguished by his ill-success--which
had never been made the subject of an article in the illustrated
magazines. No wood-engraver had ever reproduced 'a corner in the back
drawing-room' or 'the studio mantelpiece' of No. 7; no young lady author
had ever commented on 'the unaffected simplicity' with which Mr Pitman
received her in the midst of his 'treasures'. It is an omission I would