A COMEDY OF MASKS

A Novel

by

ERNEST DOWSON and ARTHUR MOORE

1893







CHAPTER I


In that intricate and obscure locality, which stretches between the
Tower and Poplar, a tarry region, scarcely suspected by the majority
of Londoners, to whom the "Port of London" is an expression purely
geographical, there is, or was not many years ago, to be found a
certain dry dock called Blackpool, but better known from time
immemorial to skippers and longshoremen, and all who go down to the
sea in ships, as "Rainham's Dock."

Many years ago, in the days of the first Rainham and of wooden
ships, it had been no doubt a flourishing ship-yard; and, indeed,
models of wooden leviathans of the period, which had been turned