The great central hall where the six hundred regular inmates ate their meals, the dormitories, the playgrounds, the drill shed and gymnasium, the workshops, the library, the theater, were all pointed out, but the big man with the staring eyes was not interested one jot in any of these things. "Who was Mary Anson?" he asked, when the well-worn tale was ended, "and how did she come to build such a fine place here?" "Ah, ye may well ax that," said old O'Brien. "Sure, she didn't build it at all at all. She was a poor widdy livin' alone-st wid one son, Mr. Philip that is now. She was a born lady, but she kem down in the worruld and died, forlorn an' forgotten, in a little shanty in Johnson's Mews, as it was called in those days." "I remember it well." "Ye do, eh? Mebbe ye know my ould shop, the marine store near the entrance to the court?" "Yes." "Arrah, ye don't tell me so. Me eyes are gettin' wake, an' I can't make out yer face. What's yer name?" "Oh, I'm afraid we didn't know one another. I can't recall your name, though I recollect the shop well enough. But, if Mrs. Anson died so poor, how was her son able to set this great house on its legs? It must have cost a mint of money." "Faix, ye're right. Quarter of a million wint afore there was a boy under its roof. And they say it costs fifty thousand pounds a year to keep it goin'. But Mr. Philip would find that and more to delight the sowl of the mother that's dead. Sure it's aisy for him, in a way. Isn't he the Diamond King!" "The Diamond King! Why is he called that?" "D'ye mane to say you nivver----Man alive, what part of creation did ye live in that ye didn't hear tell of Mr. Philip Anson, the boy who discovered an extra spishul diamond mine of his own, no one knows where. Sure, now, what's wrong wid ye?" For the visitor was softly using words which to O'Brien's dull ears sounded very like a string of curses. "I'm sorry," growled the other, with an effort. "I've been to Africa, an' I get such a spasm now an' then in my liver that I can hardly stand." "That's no way to cure yourself--profanin' the name of th' Almighty," cried O'Brien. "No. I'm sorry, I tell you. But about this boy----" "There's no more to see now, if ye plaze. That's the way out." O'Brien was deeply offended by the language used beneath a roof hallowed by the name of Mary Anson. The sightseer had to go, and quickly. Another commissionaire, who was observing them from a distance, came up and asked O'Brien what the stranger was talking about. "Ye nivver heard sich a blaggard," said the old man, indignantly. "I was in the middle of tellin' him about Mr. Philip, when he began to curse like Ould Nick himself." In the Mile End Road the rawboned person who betrayed such excitement found the policeman awaiting him. He sprang onto a 'bus, and purposely glared at the officer in a manner to attract his attention. When at a safe distance he put his fingers to his nose. The constable smiled.