When this bit of good luck had dispelled all the melancholy of the family, Johnny himself proceeded to tell Mr. and Mrs. Sandboys how, after ’listing in the Guards, he had received an injury while riding, and how he had then been presented with a berth in the London Police, whence he had been promoted to the post he at present filled in Manchester. In a short time Mr. and Mrs. Sandboys had in a measure forgotten all their previous troubles and distresses, in the kindness and hospitality of Inspector Wren. After partaking of such fare as his establishment afforded, Mr. Sandboys proceeded, under the guidance of the Inspector, to take a glance round the town. Manchester at any time is, perhaps, one of the peculiar sights that this country affords. To see the city of factories in all its bustle and all its life, with its forests of tall chimneys, like huge masts of brick, with long black flags of smoke streaming from their tops, is to look upon one of those scenes of giant industry that England alone can show. As you pace its busy streets, you hear the drone of a thousand steam-engines, humming in the ears like a hive. As you sit in your home, you feel the floor tremble with the motion of the vast machinery, whirling on every side. Here the buildings are monstrous square masses of brick, pierced with a hundred windows, while white wreaths of steam puff fitfully through their walls. Many a narrow thoroughfare is dark and sunless with the tall warehouses that rise up like bricken cliffs on either side. The streets swarm with carts and railway-vans, with drivers perched high in the air, and “lurrys”—some piled with fat round bags of wool, others laden with hard square stony-looking blocks of cotton, and others filled with many a folded piece of unbleached woven cloth. Green covered vans, like huge chests on wheels, rattle past,—the bright zinc plates at their sides, telling that they are hurrying with goods to or from some “calender,” “dyer,” or “finisher.” At one door stands a truck laden with red rows of copper cylinders, cut deep with patterns. This basement or kitchen is transformed into the showroom of some warehouseman, and as you look down the steps into the subterranean shop, you can see that in front of where the kitchen range should stand, a counter extends, spread with bright-coloured velveteens, while the place of the dresser is taken up with shelves, filled with showy cotton prints. The door-posts of every warehouse are inscribed with long catalogues of names, like those of the Metropolitan Inns of Court; and along the front of the tall buildings, between the different floors, run huge black boards, gilt with the title of some merchant firm.