“Oh, I know you can get him to come, so that’s a promise.” In the hall his mother handed Barney a cheque. “Be sure you go at once to Sartwell,” she said, “and see that you don’t bungle the business a second time.” And yet the poor boy had merely pretended that her former orders had been carried out! Barney made no remark about the inconsistency of woman. He kissed her on both cheeks, as a dutiful son should do, and departed. CHAPTER VII. In almost any other country than England the name by which the evil-smelling cul-de-sac off Light Street was known might be supposed to have been given it by some cynical humourist. It was called Rose Garden Court. As there is a reason for almost everything in this world, the chances are that once upon a time a garden stood there, and that roses probably bloomed in it. The entrance to the court was through an archway, over which, on the Light Street side, was the name of the court. At the right hand of this tunnel stood the “Rose and Crown,” locally known as the “pub,” and the door of the jug and bottle department opened into the passage, which was convenient for the inhabitants of the court. On the left of the archway there was a second-hand clothing shop, the wares, exceedingly second hand, hanging in tattered festoons about the door. A street lamp stood at the edge of the pavement, opposite the entrance to the court, and threw its rays under the archway, which somewhat feeble illumination was supplemented by a gas jet over the door of the jug and bottle department. At the blind end of Rose Garden Court stood another lamp post. The court was unevenly paved with large slabs of stone, sloppy, as a rule, from the overflow of a tap which supplied the inhabitants with water. The court was walled about with five-story buildings, and in the oblong well, formed by these rather dilapidated edifices, the air hung dank and heavy, laden with many smells. Breezes blowing over London from the south, or the north, or the west, produced no movement of the noxious air in Rose Garden Court. “Come out,” the gale from the Surrey hills might cry as it whistled merrily over the house-tops; “come out, and give the people a chance to breathe,”--but there was no answering rustle in the court--the air there was silent and sullen, as if it had taken its temper from the inhabitants of the place. Sometimes, in early spring, the insistent east wind roared boisterously through the tunnel, catching the mephitic atmosphere unawares and flinging it headlong over the roofs, filling the court with a biting whirlwind, scattering loose bits of paper and rags skywards, but the inhabitants of the court didn’t like it. They closed their windows, shivered, and wished the gale would cease. Next day the air would settle down quietly in the court, collect its odours once more, and then everybody felt that things were as they should be.