trains, which made it necessary that the third-class passenger should
rise in the middle of the night if he had to make a journey of any
length, was then in force. I had, therefore, to start at five o'clock in
the morning in order that I might reach London in the evening. I can
still recall some of the emotions of that journey. London was to me the
city of all cities--the one great goal of the journalist's ambition. I
took short views of life even then, but my secret hope, ever present to
my mind, was that I might some day attain a post in connection with the
London Press. As the crawling train came into the southern
counties--farther south than I had ever been in my life before--I
remember counting the milestones on the road, and suffering all the
emotions of the youth in "Locksley Hall" as he draws nearer to the
world's central point.

My first impression, when I found myself in the cab that was to carry me
to the Brompton Road, where lodgings had been engaged for me, was one of
bewilderment at the length of the streets. I had studied a plan of
London, and thought from it that I could, in case of need, find my way
easily on foot from King's Cross to Brompton. Now I discovered, to my
dismay, that streets which had seemed no longer than those with which I
was familiar at Newcastle stretched to a length that was apparently
interminable; whilst instead of one unbroken thoroughfare I was rattled
in my cab through squares and streets innumerable, the names of none of
which had I been able to read upon my plan. My next impression was one of
delight at the fidelity with which little bits of street scenery had been
portrayed by John Leech in _Punch_. In Newcastle we knew nothing of
the kitchen area and the portico. I was filled with joy when, in passing
through the Bloomsbury squares, I recognised, as I thought, the very
houses, porticoes, and areas that Leech had made the background for his
magnificent flunkeys and neat parlour-maids.