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

gladly supply, but our business is only with the backward parts and

'abject rear' of this aesthetic dwelling.

Here was a garden, boasting a dwarf fountain (that never played) in the

centre, a few grimy-looking flowers in pots, two or three newly

planted trees which the spring of Chelsea visited without noticeable

consequence, and two or three statues after the antique, representing

satyrs and nymphs in the worst possible style of sculptured art. On one

side the garden was overshadowed by a pair of crazy studios, usually

hired out to the more obscure and youthful practitioners of British

art. Opposite these another lofty out-building, somewhat more carefully

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