The weather forecast issued by that most valuable institution, the Meteorological Office (established since Mr. Pickwick's days, in which doubtless as a scientist and traveller he would have taken great interest), was verified to the letter, and we had "thunder locally." On our way down Parliament Street, we pass Inigo Jones's once splendid Whitehall--now looking very insignificant as compared with its grand neighbours the Government Offices opposite--remembering Mr. Jingle's joke about Whitehall, which seems to have been Dickens's first thought of "King Charles's head":--"Looking at Whitehall, Sir--fine place--little window--somebody else's head off there, eh, Sir?--he didn't keep a sharp look out enough either--eh, Sir, eh?" We also pass "The Red Lion," No. 48, Parliament Street, "at the corner of the very short street leading into Cannon Row," where David Copperfield ordered a glass of the very best ale--"The Genuine Stunning with a good head to it"--at twopence half-penny the glass, but the landlord hesitated to draw it, and gave him a glass of some which he suspected was _not_ the "genuine stunning"; and the landlady coming into the bar returned his money, and gave him a "kiss that was half-admiring and half-compassionate, but all womanly and good [he says], I'm sure." [Illustration: "My magnificent order at the Public House" (_vide_ "_David Copperfield_").] The Horse-Guards' clock is the last noteworthy object, and reminds us that Mark Tapley noticed the time there, on the occasion of his last meeting with Mary Graham in St. James's Park, before starting for America. It also reminds us of Mr. Micawber's maxim, "Procrastination is the thief of time--collar him;"--a few minutes afterwards we are comfortably seated in the train, and can defy the storm, which overtakes us precisely in the manner described in _The Old Curiosity Shop_:-- "It had been gradually getting overcast, and now the sky was dark and lowering, save where the glory of the departing sun piled up masses of gold and burning fire, decaying embers of which gleamed here and there through the black veil, and shone redly down upon the earth. The wind began to moan in hollow murmurs, as the sun went down, carrying glad day elsewhere; and a train of dull clouds coming up against it menaced thunder and lightning. Large drops of rain soon began to fall, and, as the storm clouds came sailing onward, others supplied the void they left behind, and spread over all the sky. Then was heard the low rumbling of distant thunder, then the lightning quivered, and then the darkness of an hour seemed to have gathered in an instant."