In every quarter of London, in the most matter-of-fact environment, the romance of reality is to be found--a romance as thrilling as anything the sensational novelist could invent and give to the world with a certainty that his invention would be looked upon as wildly improbable. Nothing that is imagined and invented is so astounding as that which really is, and the most astounding thing is that the existence of the reality is unsuspected by the people who live constantly in close proximity to it. Over much that is strange and terrible in modern Babylon the veil is wisely drawn by those who write for the great public. In Paris there is less discretion, and the sores of the city are laid bare for the idle and the curious to stare at them. If a writer knowing London wrote with the lack of reticence which distinguishes the Parisian who knows Paris, the result would be one beside which all the "startling revelations" that are imagined and dressed up by fictionists disguised as journalists would pale into insignificance. CHAPTER XXII.--SOME CONTRASTS _The inquest and the garden party--A policeman sits behind the screen--The portrait of a prosperous impostor--From his wife's death-bed to the House--The judge and his pet dog--Tea and cakes while they wait for the sentence_ |UNDER the trees in the garden the tables are spread for a pastoral fête. Smiling waitresses are handing ices and claret cup and strawberries and cream to daintily-gowned ladies who are sitting in the shade and chatting gaily with their admiring cavaliers. I come out from a little building in the grounds and gaze at the fair and festive scene. As I see the pretty frocks and pretty faces, and listen to the rippling laughter, I cannot help being struck by the vivid contrast between the tragedy I have that moment left and the comedy I have come upon. These grounds are the grounds of a famous hospital, and the company are gathered together under the trees after listening to speeches and witnessing the presentation of prizes in the great hall of the institution. I come through the little door of the out-building to step right into the joy of life, and the door as it closes behind has shut away a tragedy. Behind it lies a dead man upon whom the verdict of a coroner's jury has been pronounced. I am not easily upset, and I have looked in my professional wanderings upon many gruesome sights, but my nerves have been sorely tried during the five minutes I have been inside that little out-building of a great hospital. There were only two men inside it when I entered, and one of them was dead. The living man was the inquest porter, and he was spending the blazing summer afternoon in giving back to the dead one the shape and impress of humanity.