The Press., 1892-12-01

better days and subsided into the de- spending byways, apart from the thor oughfares of the bold and sturdy. Mean misery and squalor did not abide there. It was not den for the ragged, but a shy retreat for the patched, for the de- cent and decorous poor.
 Half way down the court, on the sun ny side, found Padiha1n's house. It was quietly, not obtrusively. heater and | fresher than its neighbors. Its bricks had 8 less wormeaten look, and it's win dow panes were all of glass and none of newspaper. The pot roses in an upper story window were in bloom, and had life enough to welcome the June sun- shine, while sister plants in other gar rets all about the court were too far bighted ever to dream of gayer product than some poor jaundiced bud. These roses up in Padiham's window cheered | the whole neighborhood greatly with their lively coloring. It was as if some pretty maiden with rosy cheeks and riper rosy lips were looking down into that forlorn retreat and warming every old, faded soul within every shabby tenement with bright reminiscence of days when
 life was in it's perfume and it's flower. Such was the aspect of Padiham's abode. His shop lurked in the basement It was with much curiosity and inter- est in Padiham that stepped down into the basement. Padiham was in his shop at work. No mistaking him. A stunted, iron gray man, not misshapen, but only shut together, like one barreled opera glass.
 He took no notice of me and continued his work.
 held my station near the door. did not wish to spoil his job by the jar of an interruption. Besides, I thought it as we'll to let him speak first. I was pre- pared for an odd man; he might make the advances, if he pleased.
 Padiham went on filing in a grim, in telligent way. glanced about the shop. There were models all about of ma chimes, some known, some strange to me; disconnected portions of inventions lying side by side, and wanting only bolt or screw to be organized and ready to rush at pumping, or lifting, or drag ging, or busy duty of some useful kind There was store, too, of interesting rub 1 bish-members of futile models that | could not do busy duty of their kind for some slight error, and worth careful study as warnings, for failure with me- chanics is the schoolmaster of success. Drawings of engines hung all about the walls. As the guardian genius of the spot, there was a portrait of that wise, benignant face of my friend of this morn | ing, that great engineer who had direct | ed me hither.
 | Apart in dusky corner, by the chim- ney and forge, hung two water color drawings in neat gilt frames. They were perhaps little incongruous with the scenery of the gnome's cavern. did not, of course, expect to find here portrait of truculent bruiser or leering bar maid. Beery journeymen keep such low art hanging before them to seduce them from any ambition to become master hands and beguile them back of beer
 Padiham would of course need drawings of models and machines, and enjoy them; but did not look for art proper in this shop. There, however, in the dim back ground, hung the two cheerful draw | ings, in their neat frames. They re- newed and repeated the feeling which the gay roses in the upper windows had given me. My fancy supplied 8 link
 between the drawings and the flowers They infused pleasant element of re- fnement into the workaday atmosphere of the shop. 1 One of these drawings-I could just faintly distinguish their subject and