The red curtains a little further down the street belong to the enterprising Pole, who, from his chambers in the Quarter, edits the Polish Punch, a feat which I cannot help thinking, though I have never seen the paper, must be the most comic thing about it. In the house on one side, the author who is England's most distinguished Man of Letters to-day, and who has become great as a novelist, began life as an architect. From the house on the other side, the Poet-Patriot-Novelist of the Empire fired, or tried to fire, the Little Englanders with his own blustering, knock-you-down Imperialism, and bullied and flattered them, amused and abused them, called them names they would not have forgiven from any other man living and could not easily swallow from him, and was all the while himself so simple and unassuming that next to nobody knew he was in the Quarter until he left it. The British Dramatist close by, who conquers the heart of the sentimental British public by sentiment, is just as unassuming. He is rarely without a play on the London stage, rarely without several on tour. He could probably buy out everybody in the Quarter, except perhaps the Socialist, and he can lose a little matter of sixteen thousand pounds or so and never miss it. But so seldom is he seen that you might think he was afraid to show himself. "You'd never know 'e was in the 'ouse, 'e's that quiet like. Why, 'e never gives no trouble to nobody," the Housekeeper has confided to me. He shrinks from putting his name on his front door, though by this time he must be used to its staring at him in huge letters from posters and playbills all over the world. Perhaps it is to give himself courage that he keeps a dog who is as forward as his master is retiring, and who is my terror. I am on speaking terms with most of the dogs of the Quarter, but with the Dramatist's I have never ventured to exchange a greeting. I happened to mention my instinctive distrust, one day, to a friend who has made the dog's personal acquaintance. "He eats kids!" was my friend's comment. Then he added: "You have seen dozens of children go up to the Dramatist's room, haven't you?" "Yes," I answered, for it was a fact. "Well, and have you ever seen one come down again?" And if you will believe it, I never have.