This rather grimed waste of brick wall on the south side of King Street is “Willis’s Rooms,” familiar enough; but it is not so well known that here used to be held the old “Almack’s” balls. They were instituted a full century ago as gambling and dancing rooms. There is a pleasant old-fashioned flavour in the term “The Rooms,” and there are “the Rooms” still at Bath, and at York. These are of a pleasing rococo pattern, rich and florid, and the design is of the good old spacious school, now extinct. “Willis’s Rooms” is the sole survival of such things in London. Some years ago we had the Hanover Square Rooms, of the same kind, long since converted into a club. The rooms in King Street are enriched with florid old stucco, but it has been coloured, to suit the tastes of the day, with execrable feeling. Almack was originally one MacCall, a Scot, who came to “Town,” and thinking his name somewhat too provincial, reversed the syllables. Close by is the St. James’s Theatre, built by Braham, and where, till the hour of her death, his daughter, Lady Waldegrave, had her box. This pretty house has since been enlarged after the modern fashion, and a balcony added; and the observer may note that the ceiling and the portion of the auditorium nearest the stage, with the panelling of the boxes, belongs to the old theatre. Hard by is the picturesquely-placed old Palace of St. James’s, which, however, has been sorely maimed by later improvements; witness the “skimpy” colonnade in its court. The really effective bit is the old-fashioned gateway, with its towers of fine, rubicund brick, hard as stone, as ripe in colour and crusted as old port. It is a welcome, familiar object, well proportioned, with a Dutch quaintness and effect in its belfry. How pleasant and satisfactory it is may be conceived by simply imagining it away from the bottom of St. James’s Street. Some fifty years ago it was suggested to George IV., by his Minister, that the whole Palace should be sold, and pulled down, to supply resources for building ugly Buckingham Palace! Mr. Whistler has noted the gaiety of the scene, and has done an etching of the lively, cheerful view. Every passer-by avails himself of the services of the pleasant, cheerful clock, and its agreeable unpretending chimes. Our old friend the tower is all for practical use, his cupola sheltering the bells, his gate for passage, his dial for telling time. And what a right well-proportioned, conspicuous dial it is! It is seen at once that the building was intended for it, and it for the building, whereas in numberless so-called clock towers the clock face seems to have been merely “stuck on” as an afterthought, or a hole made in which a dial was inserted. There is art in so simple a thing as this.