While thus speaking, they had entered Pall Mall, which presented a very different appearance from that which it displays in the present day, as well as from that which it had borne half a century before. There were no longer doable rows of trees on the one side and detached houses, with scattered gardens, on the other; but the buildings were still very irregular; and, occasionally, an open piece of ground with a tall poplar or two intervened between a princely mansion--such as Marlborough House, or Schomberg House--and a common inn, such as The Sugar-loaf, or Richards's Tavern. As Pall Mall was, at this time, a favourite place of residence for strangers visiting the metropolis, the thoroughfare was somewhat crowded; and numerous sedan-chairs were passing along, carrying gentlemen to visits or to chocolate-houses. The footpath, though famous for its mud in wet weather, was now quite dry; and the feet of the chairmen, as they trotted along in the middle of the road, raised clouds of dust very inconvenient to the eyes. It might be this circumstance which caused Van Noost's companion to press his hat further over his brows, as he entered this street; and quicken his pace to the discomposure of the other's somewhat jaunty steps. A distant shout, however, seemed to give wings to good Van Noost's feet; for, whispering--"Come on--come on here, across, or we shall be too late. He is issuing out of the House. I know the bark of those dirty muzzles well," he darted to the other side of the way; and, to the surprise of his companion, entered a dingy apothecary's shop, indicated by the sign of a golden pestle and mortar over the door. "Good morning, Mr. Gingle," he said, to a man who was pounding something in a very large mortar, and raising an inconceivable smell. "Will you just let us pass by your back way into the park? My friend and I want to see the Earl of Oxford come up from the House." "Go on, go on, Van Noost," replied the shop-keeper, sneezing into the mortar, and hardly raising his eyes. "You know the way; but don't leave the door open." With this permission, the two companions hurried on through a little back-parlour into a small yard behind the house, and thence, by a doorway in the wall into a narrow passage which led them by some steps into the mall of the park.