A stranger making a call in that portion of North Kensington which lies in the vicinity of Ladbroke Grove by some mischance lost his way. He wandered through many prosperous crescents and quiet squares redolent of the opulence of the upper middle classes, through broad avenues where neat broughams stood waiting in small carriage-drives, and once he blundered into a tidy mews, where horsy men with great hissings made ready the chariots of the Notting Hill plutocracy. It may be that he was in no particular hurry to arrive at his destination, this stranger--who has nothing to do with the story--but certainly he did not avail himself of opportunity in the shape of a passing policeman, and continued his aimless wanderings. He found Kensington Park Road, a broad thoroughfare of huge gardens and walled forecourts, then turned into a side street. He walked about twenty paces, and found himself in the heart of slum-land. It is no ordinary slum this little patch of property that lies between Westbourne Grove and Kensington Park Road. There are no tumbled-down hovels or noisome passages; there are streets of houses dignified with flights of steps that rise to pretentious street doors and areas where long dead menials served the need of the lower middle classes of other days. The streets are given over to an army of squalling children in varying styles of dirtiness, and the halls of these houses are bare of carpet or covering, and in some the responsibility of leasehold is shared by eight or nine families, all pigging together. They are streets of slatternly women, who live at their front doors, arms rolled under discolored aprons, and on Saturday nights one street at least deserves the pithy but profane appellation which the police have given it--“Little Hell.” In this particular thoroughfare it is held that of all sins the greatest is that which is associated with “spying.” A “spy” is a fairly comprehensive phrase in Cawdor Street. It may mean policeman, detective, school-board official, rent collector, or the gentleman appointed by the gas company to extract pennies from the slot-meters. To Cawdor Street came a man who rented one of the larger houses. To the surprise of the agent, he offered his rent monthly in advance; to the surprise of the street, he took no lodgers. It was the only detached house in that salubrious road, and was No. 49. The furniture came by night, which is customary amongst people who concentrate their last fluttering rag of pride upon the respectability of their household goods. Cawdor Street, on the _qui vive_ for the lady of the house, learns with genuine astonishment that there was none, and that the newcomer was a bachelor.