[Illustration: STATUE OF GENERAL GORDON IN TRAFALGAR SQUARE.] It seemed unlikely that this “goose-pie,” amid all the vicissitudes of Whitehall, could have escaped demolition. But recently the writer of these notes came on a rather minute description of the place, drawn up in the year 1815. As it then appeared, it was a low, long building in three divisions, two stories high, with arched windows, three in each compartment. Further, the brothers Adam had taken it in hand, and added two wings or vestibules, projecting forward and decorated with their own peculiar “fan-like” ornamentation. This was satisfactory for identification; though no one of our generation was likely to recall such a structure in Whitehall. But almost at the first search it was revealed. There it stood flanking the Banqueting Hall in the shape of the dilapidated, gone-to-seed museum known as the United Service Institution. This was the original Vanbrugh “goose-pie” family mansion, answering in every point to the description, encumbered with the Adam additions, effective and not without merit. It is, however, in rather a squalid state; and it is safe to prophesy that in two or three years it will have disappeared. It is curious to think of the brilliant author of “The Relapse” living here nearly two hundred years ago. Close as it is to Charing Cross, St. Martin’s Lane and the district about it still retain an old-fashioned air. At its very entrance we note one of the most effective and effectively placed buildings in London, the fine church, St. Martin’s, with its soaring and conspicuous steeple and stately portico. The levity of our time was never better illustrated than by the proposal to cut away the steps to gain a few feet of roadway, and it was actually gravely suggested and discussed whether it would not be the best course to remove the portico wholesale, and place it at the back of the church! From every direction, almost, the spire can be seen, and from every quarter the church forms a pleasing point of view. It was built by Gibbs, and its interior is in Wren’s peculiar favourite manner--a vaulted ceiling supported on columns, which, in their turn, support galleries, their bases being covered up by the massive pews.