"We shall look like a pair of young gentlemen out questing for whores," Johann agreed. "Do not be concerned. Drury Lane is the frontier of a chancy district. Many of those who live there have strayed up to Broad St. Giles’s this evening. Riding the border is not so terribly dangerous. Going through it would be a bad idea—but we shan’t do that. Straight down Drury it is, all the way to the Strand." And with that Johann guided his mount round a right turn onto Drury Lane. Caroline’s horse lurched forward in an effort to keep pace, and she almost lost her wig again. From here Drury Lane looked infinitely long, and hellishly disordered even by the standards of London: it narrowed and widened, narrowed and widened as if no surveyor had ever stretched out a line here, and buildings leaned away from it, or slumped over it, like a bench of drunks in a gin-house. She did not see any bonfires, which she counted as a sort of good news; perhaps Drury Lane would be left to the whores, procurers, and pickpockets tonight, even as other streets and intersections were employed as squares on the Whig/Tory chessboard.