Next door, divided by a narrow passage, is No. 106, which is now known as the “St. James’s Club.” Built on the site of an old inn called “The Greyhound,” by the sixth Earl of Coventry, “the grave young lord,” as Walpole calls him--who, by the bye, married one of the beautiful Gunnings, who killed herself, ’tis said, by trying to improve the loveliness that Nature had given her. Here he died in 1809; his successor to the title also lived here, and, after his decease in 1831, it became the headquarters of the “Coventry House Club” (or the “Ambassadors’”), which was, however, closed in 1854. The house next door is also a club--“The Savile”--one of the literary clubs of modern London. In the old days, it was the home of the famous Nathan Rothschild, who made a great _coup_ over the Battle of Waterloo, and once told Spohr that the only music he cared for was the chink of money! As we loiter along, the trees of the Green Park attract us, and the gradual widening of the thoroughfare as we approach Hyde Park Corner, an improvement made but a few years since, gives an additional effect to the _coup d’œil_ that here presents itself. That curious object over there, a sort of high shelf standing on two iron supports, has exercised many a mind as to its uses. Perhaps not many people are aware that the solution is to be found on a plate affixed to the object itself, the words of which are as follows: “On the suggestion of R. A. Slaney, Esq., who for 26 years represented Shrewsbury in Parliament, this porters’ rest was erected in 1861 by the Vestry of St. George, Hanover Square, for the benefit of porters and others carrying burdens. As a relic of a past period in London’s history it is hoped that the people will aid in its preservation.” But we must return to our bricks and mortar and the associations connected with them. [Sidenote: DOWN STREET.] Now we are at the corner of Down Street, which leads directly to Mayfair; and here (in No. 116, Piccadilly) is now the Junior Athenæum Club, but known in earlier days as Hope House, which H. T. Hope, the author of “Anastasius” and the creator of “Deepdene,” at Dorking--built in 1848-9, at a cost of £80,000. When a stranger is brought to this point and shewn the narrow way dividing the club from the adjoining houses, and is told that it is Park Lane (_see page 134_) he probably, being ignorant of locality, receives a shock, having in mind the celebrity of this part of the town and the fine houses which he has been taught to believe exist in it. But this narrow street _is_ technically the commencement of Park Lane, and does much to account for the somewhat inappropriate title by which this fashionable thoroughfare is known.