Amelia Terrace was in a desolate locality enough, being shut out from the world by wide intervening stretches of market garden, very useful and very productive, no doubt, but which seemed to lack every pleasant attribute with which a garden is usually associated in one's mind. The particular house that Gerald was in search of was one of twenty others exactly similar to it in pattern and design. Little shabby-looking six-roomed houses, the cheap stucco with which their fronts were plastered peeling off already in great ugly blotches, the yard of "garden" on to which their windows looked protected by cheap railings, broken away in many places, and thick with rust, or twisted out of shape in others. Inside, the rooms were close and frowsy, with doors and windows that in some cases would not shut, and in others left crevices that in this wintry weather had to be stuffed up with rags, or old newspapers, or even here and there with an old bonnet. At one corner was a flaring gin-palace, and at the other a huckster's shop, only its proprietor did not call it a shop, but an "emporium." Yes, Mr. Byrne was at home, said the slatternly servant who answered Gerald's knock at No. 2. Before more could be said, some one called out from the parlour, "Walk in, sir, walk in, if it's me you are in want of. I saw you when you were over the way, but I didn't know that you were looking for No. 2." Gerald accepted the invitation and walked into the parlour, a shabbily-furnished little room, pervaded by a vile odour of stale tobacco-smoke. Mr. Byrne, in red morocco slippers, a Turkish cap, and a faded dressing gown of a flowery Chinese sort of pattern, rose from the sofa to receive him. Peter Byrne was a man of sixty, but looked quite ten years younger than that age, thanks to his dyed hair, his artificial teeth, and the faintest possible suspicion of rouge, without which, when got up for the day, he never ventured abroad. But so deftly and artfully was the hare's foot applied, that not one out of a dozen of his acquaintances accepted as other than genuine that pleasant, healthy colour which, whatever the season might be, Peter Byrne's cheeks never failed to display. He was rather under than over the medium height, was lightly built, and was very active for his age. His head was large, and somewhat disproportionate to the size of his body. He had large, but regular features, and had doubtless thought himself very good-looking when a young man; but the lines of his face were now coarse and fleshy, and seemed to indicate a too free indulgence in the good things of the table, and possibly too great a fondness for after-dinner potations. He had clear grey eyes, with a keenness and a steadfastness in them that Gerald liked; and yet there seemed something factitious about his smile--it came and went too readily to seem altogether genuine. Gerald having introduced himself and taken a chair, proceeded at once to the object of his visit.