Page:Pen And Pencil Sketches - Volume I.djvu/37

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AT THE OLD HOME
11

and seeing the Life Guards returning to their barracks in Albany Street after the coronation of the Queen at Westminster, and later in the day, leaning out of the same window, I sang “ God save the Queen” at the top of my voice, much to the amusement of the crowd besfinninor to assemble for the illuminations.

A few years later the old premises were sold to Mr. Fergusson the architect, who had them entirely rebuilt and reconstructed. While the building was in progress my father took a house in Foley Place, where we became neighbours of Joseph J. Hansom, the architect of the Cathedral at Arun- del. He was the inventor of the cabs which bear his name, and founded, or at least originated, the Builder newspaper. My father and he became great friends. Mr. Hansom was a Roman Catholic, and my father had become a member of the Church of England. The two had frequent and lively polemical discussions, for my father had studied theology among other subjects ; but notwithstand- ing the difference in their faiths, their disputes were always conducted with temper and moderation. Among other schools to which I went was one kept by a Doctor Maclure in Queen Anne Street, on the same side of the way as, and not far from, J.M.W. Turner’s house. Maclure was a severe master and of most irritable nature, using the cane pretty