A low iron railing stood out from the wall of the house by which they had stopped, fencing off a third of the pavement. It was a house with a large, arched double-door, an imitation, on a modest scale, of the more imposing entrances of the dwellings in adjacent Portland Place; a house that had evidently seen better days, and still held its head higher than most of its neighbours. To the left of the door were three bells, placed the one above the other; over the lowest of these was a small brass plate, with this inscription in red letters, “Rahas and Fanah;” while between the two windows of the ground-floor hung a board with the same names painted on it, and underneath the words, “Oriental Merchants.” These lower windows were so begrimed with dust and soot that they imparted a film of occidental unloveliness to the oriental merchandise within. Rows of engraved brass bowls and vases, of curious design, and without the rich golden glow which, in the magnificent and expensive Eastern bazaars of Regent Street, suggests the popularising touch of Birmingham; hanging lamps of metal and glass, of strange and clumsy shapes, lovely only to the initiated; a long, graceful, and unserviceable-looking gun, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, inviting you to believe it came fresh from the hands of an Arab sheikh--all these, against a background of Turkish tables, Indian plaster figures, hookahs, and strange weapons, formed an odd collection which, veiled by the murky dimness of ostentatiously dirty window-panes, and railed off three feet from the reckless errand-boy, had no attraction whatever for the denizens of Mary Street.