John Grey is scarcely the name for a hero; not the sort of name you would choose of your own free will if the telling of a fairy story was placed unreservedly in your hands. If every latitude were offered you, quite possibly you would select the name of Raoul or Rudolfe--some name, at least, that had a ring in it as it left the tongue. They say, however, that by any other name a rose would smell as sweet. Oh--but I cannot believe that is true--good heavens! think of the pleasure you would lose if you had to call it a turnip! And yet I lose no pleasure, no sense of mine is jarred when I call my hero--John Grey. But if I do lose no pleasure, it is with a very good reason. It is because I have no other alternative. John Grey was a real person. He lived. He lived, too, over that identical little greengrocer’s shop of Mrs. Meakin’s in Fetter Lane and, though there was a private side entrance from the street, he often passed through the shop in order to smell the wholesome smell of good mother earth, to look at the rosy cheeks of the apples, to wish he was in the country, and to say just a few words to the good lady of the shop. To the rest of the inhabitants of the house, even to Mrs. Meakin herself, he was a mystery. They never quite understood why he lived there. The woman who looked after his rooms, waking him at nine o’clock in the morning, making his cup of coffee, lingering with a duster in his sitting-room until he was dressed, then lingering over the making of his bed in the bedroom until it was eleven o’clock--the time of her departure--even she was reticent about him. There is a reticence amongst the lower classes which is a combination of ignorance of facts and a supreme lack of imagination. This was the reticence of Mrs. Rowse. She knew nothing; she could invent nothing; so she said nothing. They plied her with questions in vain. He received a lot of letters, she said, some with crests on the envelopes. She used to look at these in wonder before she brought them into his bedroom. They might have been coronets for the awe in which she held them; but in themselves they explained nothing, merely added, in fact, to the mystery which surrounded him. Who was he? What was he? He dressed well--not always, but the clothes were there had he liked to wear them. Three times a week, sometimes more, sometimes less, he donned evening dress, stuck an opera hat on his head and Mrs. Meakin would see him pass down the Lane in front of her shop. If she went to the door to watch him, which quite frequently she did, it was ten chances to one that he would stop a passing hansom, get into it, and drive away. The good lady would watch it with her eyes as it wheeled round into Holborn, and then, returning to her backless chair, exclaim: