gentleman in a dressing gown and a scarlet smoking cap and two or three ladies appeared on a sort of verandah at the back of the house, and had a good look at me, but did not attempt to come down in the garden. Presently two men came up the steps from the kitchen under the verandah, one of them dressed as a groom, and the other in his shirt sleeves and a big rough hairy cap on, who I found afterwards was the potman at the White Bear Tavern opposite, while the other was the doctor’s groom, who lived two or three doors higher up the road, who had been fetched in to arrest me. They brought me up into the hall at the bottom of the kitchen stairs, and the old gentleman began to question how I got into such a scrape, and where I came from. When I told him I came from Chelsea near the Hospital, he asked if I knew any of the officers, and as I mentioned several of them by name that he knew; he told me he was a retired army surgeon. I was allowed to go into the scullery to have a wash and brush the mud off, and it was suggested by the potman that I had better stop until it was dark for fear I should be known, and as I had no cap he went off to his mistress and begged an old one belonging to one of her boys, who had just gone back to school. As soon as it was dark I was let up the area steps and started home and went to bed saying nothing about it, but felt awfully sore and bad. In speaking of the King’s Road I forgot to mention a very famous pump which stood opposite the “Six Bells,” close to the old burial ground, and that had the reputation of giving the most transparent and sparkling water that was to be obtained, which was fetched from far and near. The boys used to play some trick by placing a large stone up the curved nozzle, so that when the servants came with their jugs and began to pump it would send out the stone and through the bottoms of the jugs. It got complained of, and the parish put a grating which stopped that little game. The reputation of the water went on till some wag asserted that a human tooth had been pumped up and found its way to the water bottle on the dressing table. It then began to dawn on the authorities that it might not be so wholesome as reported, and the handle of the old pump was chained up, and soon after the road was widened by taking a part of the burial ground, and the old pump was done away with. CHAPTER 14.—Knightsbridge.