CHAPTER 8In Watchbell Street the wind caught them full in the face. It was all Mr. Pinkerton could manage, to keep in the wake of the Inspector, holding his hat, trying to keep his overcoat from wrapping about his legs. Watchbell Street was quite empty. The wind and rain bowled frantically along its flinty roadway, and tore the branches of the old trees in Church Yard as they came to the Square, past the rows of stuccoed houses that Mr. Pinkerton knew were under the timber and plaster exteriors—so assiduously imitated in the long rows of jerry-built dwellings stretching out from London in dreary monotony for mile after mile, at five shillings down and five shillings a week, for a nation of Methuselahs to own, eventually, as they sank into the grave, the houses having long since preceded th
