I flatter myself that Professor Joff's preposterous surmises were finally silenced by my monograph, _A Hundred Queer Things about Bouverie Street._ Curiously enough I wrote this with a pencil borrowed from a friend whose aunt once caught sight, as a girl, of a prisoner being taken to the Old Bailey to be tried for murder. That prisoner was the notorious Budgingham. And now comes the interesting part of the story. Budgingham, as transpired at the trial, had bigamously married the step-daughter of a man whose godfather's mother's cousin's great-grandmother remembered hearing the bells of Bow Church tolling on the day when Henri de Bouverie landed in England to attend the funeral of his niece, the beautiful Mrs. Coop. London's history is indeed crowded, though (to the antiquarian) oddly short in its perspective. Next week, having sketched the romantic career of Henri de Bouverie (concerning whom Professor Joff has made several incredible mistakes), I shall give a still more startling example of the links which lead us so abruptly to the antechambers of what we might have supposed to be the dim and distant past. The Metropolis, to anyone who appreciates historical research and can write as easily as I can, is a gold-mine; fortunately few pressmen realise its possibilities, and that of an _Index Rerum_, as I do. If, as I anticipate, this article is printed and paid for with the usual eagerness and a series ordered, nothing can stop me---- [Wait and see.--ED.] * * * * * Our Gallery of Happy Phrases. I. "Mr. Tooth, whose name was in everybody's mouth a generation or so ago." _Dublin Daily Express._ * * * * * POINTS OF VIEW. If you are the sort of person who likes detail and accuracy, who can always tell where the north is even in a strange house (there _are_ people like this; I met one the other day), and--this generally goes with it--are good at geography, you had better skip this article. It might annoy you. But if you like DEBUSSY, and like watching the sun shine through a mist, and have no bump of locality, and hate being shown over ruins, you are the sort of person I am, and you will sympathise with me.