It was in 1765 that a Scot who came up to London conceived the design of erecting fashionable rooms on the pattern of the casinos abroad. His name was McCall, the syllables of which he ingeniously reversed into the celebrated “Almack”; and he brought his countryman, the renowned Neil Gow, from Edinburgh, to lend the music. The building was erected hurriedly, from the designs of Robert Mylne, of course another Scot, who had built Blackfriars Bridge. On the opening night, in February, the rooms were half empty, for the fashionable world was suffering from colds and was afraid to go. The walls were imperfectly dried, and the rich ceilings were dripping; though Almack protested that hot bricks and boiling water had been used in the structure. The place, however, grew into fashion, and at the suppers, Almack himself, “with his broad Scotch face and in a bag-wig,” was seen attending; while his wife, in a sack, “made tea and curtseys to our duchesses.” This worthy man died in 1781. How Almack’s passed to Willis is not clear. The Willises were a musical firm in their day. Gambling was carried on in the Rooms, and enormous sums were lost and won in a night. Its greatest days, however, were during the Regency, when the famous “Almack’s Balls” were given under the haughty control of “Ladies patronesses,” the Jersey, the Lieven, and others, and when the most exclusive system was in vogue. Gronow and Raikes tell many stories of the arrogance of these dames, when to obtain a “voucher” became a matter of favour and delicacy. The Almack’s Balls were continued in some shape, and under less exclusive conditions, until recently, when they were finally given up. It is a curious feeling to enter and promenade through these forlorn and ghostly chambers. The doors stand open, and we can wander in and up the grand stone stair--the banisters oddly encased in crimson velvet. Everything is laid out on a noble, spacious scale. Gloomy and even dismal now seems the great ball-room on the first-floor--scene of so many “festival dinners” and dances--with its fine chimney-piece, floridly embroidered ceilings, “set-off,” as it was fancied, with hideous modern colouring, now faded and inexpressibly shabby. The old scheme was white and gold. But here are still the fine old English mirrors, with their garlands and carvings; and the tall pillars behind which Neil Gow and his fiddlers played; and the chandeliers, of Venetian glass apparently, with their chains and lustres and bulbous drops, elegant enough. Here are all the old-fashioned “rout” seats and chairs and tables huddled together and piled up on top of one another. Many a “bad quarter of an hour” has been spent here whilst awaiting nervously the chairman’s signal to “reply to the toast”; and here is the very spot where I once sat “peppering,” as it is called, in an [Illustration: GRAND STAIRCASE, BUCKINGHAM PALACE. (_From a Photo by_ MR. E. KING.)]