Then, however, he turned slightly, and looked down-stream where the Victoria Embankment spreads past the Temple to Blackfriars. The colonnades of Somerset House showed boldly and with a certain majesty in the foreground, whilst in the distance, high over every roof, arose the leaden dome of St. Paul's. This vista was rather to M. Zola's liking. Close beside us, on the bridge, was one of the semi-circular embrasures garnished with stone seats. A pitiful-looking vagrant was lolling there; but this made no difference to M. Zola. He installed himself on the seat with Desmoulin on one hand and myself on the other, and there we remained for some little time looking about us and chatting. 'This was the only thing wanted,' said Desmoulin, who generally had some humorous remark in readiness for every situation. 'Yesterday at the Grosvenor we were in the _fosse de Vincennes_, and now, as they say in the melodrama of "The Knights of the Fog" ("Les Chevaliers du Brouillard"*), we are "homeless wanderers stranded on the bridges of London."' * The French dramatic adaptation of Ainsworth's 'Jack Sheppard.' The allusion to the fog roused M. Zola from his contemplation. 'But where is the Savoy Hotel, where I stayed in '93?' he inquired. 'It must be very near here.' I pointed it out to him, and he was astonished. 'Why, no--that cannot be! It is so large a place, and now it looks so small. What is that huge building beside it?' 'The Hotel Cecil,' I replied. Then again he shook his head in disapproval. From an artistic standpoint he strongly objected to the huge caravansary on which builder Hobbs and pious Jabez Balfour spent so much of other people's money. Soaring massively and pretentiously into the sky it dwarfed everything around; and thus, in his opinion, utterly spoilt that part of the Embankment. 'To think, too,' said he, 'that you had such a site, here, along the river, and allowed it to be used for hotels and clubs, and so forth. There was room for a Louvre here, and you want one badly; for your National Gallery, which I well remember visiting in '93, is a most wretched affair architecturally.' 'But I want to see rather more of the south side of the river,' he added, after a pause. 'I should like to ascertain if my lion is still there. I recollect that there was some fog about on the morning after my arrival at the Savoy in '93; and when I went to the window of my room I noticed the mist parting--one mass of vapour ascending skyward, while the other still hovered over the river. And, in the rent between, I espied a lion, poised in mid air. It amused me vastly; and I called my wife, saying to her, "Come and see. Here's the British lion waiting to bid us good-day."'