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Richard Carvel — Volume 05 by Winston Churchill
page 55 of 104 (52%)
hand by the Thames watermen. Here was a young gentleman who never heard
of the Lord Mayor's scale of charges. And what was a shilling to such as
he! Intricate puzzle, indeed! Any booby might have read upon the young
man's face that secret which is written for all,--high and low, rich and
poor alike.

My new lace handkerchief was down upon the seat, lest Dolly soil her
bright pink lutestring. She should have worn nothing else but the hue of
roses. How the bargemen stared, and the passengers craned their necks,
and the longshoremen stopped their work as we shot past them! On her
account a barrister on the Temple Stairs was near to letting fall his bag
in the water. A lady in a wherry! Where were the whims of the quality
to lead them next? Past the tall water-tower and York Stairs, the idlers
under the straight row of trees leaning over the high river wall; past
Adelphi Terrace, where the great Garrick lived; past the white columns of
Somerset House, with its courts and fountains and alleys and architecture
of all ages, and its river gate where many a gilded royal barge had lain,
and many a fine ambassador had arrived in state over the great highway of
England; past the ancient trees in the Temple Gardens. And then under
the new Blackfriars Bridge to Southwark, dingy with its docks and
breweries and huddled houses, but forever famous,--the Southwark of
Shakespeare and Jonson and Beaumont and Fletcher. And the shelf upon
which they stood in the library at Carvel Hall was before my eyes.

"Yes," said Dolly; "and I recall your mother's name written in faded ink
upon the fly-leaves."

Ah, London Town, by what subtleties are you tied to the hearts of those
born across the sea? That is one of the mysteries of race.

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