THE NEW SUBURB 63 



" villas" there. Streets of them, and all alike I After 

 this, a tramway was made along the high-road, start- 

 ing at Hammersmith, and ending at Kew Bridge. 

 That tramway was amusing to us schoolboys, so long- 

 as the novelty of it lasted. Our school — it had the 

 imposing name of Belmont House — faced the high- 

 road, and it was our greatest delight of summer 

 evenings to throw pieces of soap at the outside 

 passengers of tlie trams from the bedroom windows. 

 The expenditure of soap was tremendous, and some- 

 times those " outsiders " were hit, whereupon there was 

 trouble ! There was a gloomy old mansion opposite 

 our school, called "Bleak House," and we used to think 

 it was the veritable " Bleak House " of Dickens's story. 

 We know better now. It still stands, but a furniture 

 warehousing firm have built warehouses on to it, and 

 it is no longer romantically gloomy. 



The school has gone, too, where I learnt, and 

 promptly forgot, Latin and Greek ; and a row of 

 shops, with big plate-ghiss windows and great gas 

 lamps, have taken its place ; and where we con- 

 strued those dead (and deadly) languages, the linen- 

 draper's assistant measures out muslins and calicoes. 

 I have walked along these pavements during the last 

 few days, and have noted more changes. There used 

 to stand, beside the road, on the rioht hand as vou 

 go towards Gunnersbury, a little wayside "pub," with 

 bow windows, and a bent and hunch-backed red-tiled 

 roof. It was called the " Robin Hood," and an old- 

 fashioned wooden post, supporting the swinging sign, 

 stood on the kerb-stone, beside a horse-trough. I re- 

 member the sign well, for it liad quite an elaborate 



