Birds of Prey | Page 2

so
impossible was it to discover a faded leaf amongst their greenness, or
the presence of blight amidst their wealth of blossom. There were
birdcages within the shadow of the muslin curtains, and the colouring
of the newly-pointed brickwork was agreeably relieved by the vivid
green of Venetian blinds. The freshly-varnished street-door bore a
brass-plate, on which to look was to be dazzled; and the effect
produced by this combination of white door-step, scarlet geranium,
green blind, and brass-plate was obtrusively brilliant.
Those who had been so privileged as to behold the interior of the house
in Fitzgeorge-street brought away with them a sense of admiration that
was the next thing to envy. The pink and pattern of propriety within, as
it was the pink and pattern of propriety without, it excited in every
breast alike a wondering awe, as of a habitation tenanted by some
mysterious being, infinitely superior to the common order of

householders.
The inscription on the brass-plate informed the neighbourhood that No.
14 was occupied by Mr. Sheldon, surgeon-dentist; and the dwellers in
Fitzgeorge-street amused themselves in their leisure hours by
speculative discussions upon the character and pursuits, belongings and
surroundings, of this gentleman.
Of course he was eminently respectable. On that question no
Fitzgeorgian had ever hazarded a doubt. A householder with such a
door-step and such muslin curtains could not be other than the most
correct of mankind; for, if there is any external evidence by which a
dissolute life or an ill-regulated mind will infallibly betray itself, that
evidence is to be found in the yellowness and limpness of muslin
window-curtains. The eyes are the windows of the soul, says the poet;
but if a man's eyes are not open to your inspection, the windows of his
house will help you to discover his character as an individual, and his
solidity as a citizen. At least such was the opinion cherished in
Fitzgeorge-street, Russell-square.
The person and habits of Mr. Sheldon were in perfect harmony with the
aspect of the house. The unsullied snow of the door-step reproduced
itself in the unsullied snow of his shirt-front; the brilliancy of the
brass-plate was reflected in the glittering brightness of his gold-studs;
the varnish on the door was equalled by the lustrous surface of his
black-satin waistcoat; the careful pointing of the brickwork was in a
manner imitated by the perfect order of his polished finger-nails and the
irreproachable neatness of his hair and whiskers. No dentist or medical
practitioner of any denomination had inhabited the house in
Fitzgeorge-street before the coming of Philip Sheldon. The house had
been unoccupied for upwards of a year, and was in the last stage of
shabbiness and decay, when the bills disappeared all at once from the
windows, and busy painters and bricklayers set their ladders against the
dingy brickwork. Mr. Sheldon took the house on a long lease, and spent
two or three hundred pounds in the embellishment of it. Upon the
completion of all repairs and decorations, two great waggon-loads of
furniture, distinguished by that old fashioned clumsiness which is

eminently suggestive of respectability, arrived from the Euston-square
terminus, while a young man of meditative aspect might have been
seen on his knees, now in one empty chamber, anon in another,
performing some species of indoor surveying, with a three-foot rule, a
loose little oblong memorandum-book, and the merest stump of a
square lead-pencil. This was an emissary from the carpet warehouse;
and before nightfall it was known to more than on inhabitant in
Fitzgeorge-street that the stranger was going to lay down new carpets.
The new-comer was evidently of an active and energetic temperament,
for within three days of his arrival the brass-plate on his street-door
announced his profession, while a neat little glass-case, on a level with
the eye of the passing pedestrian, exhibited specimens of his skill in
mechanical dentistry, and afforded instruction and amusement to the
boys of the neighbourhood, who criticised the glistening white teeth
and impossibly red gums, displayed behind the plate-glass, with a like
vigour and freedom of language. Nor did Mr. Sheldon's announcement
of his profession confine itself to the brass-plate and the glass-case. A
shabby-genteel young man pervaded the neighbourhood for some days
after the surgeon-dentist's advent, knocking a postman's knock, which
only lacked the galvanic sharpness of the professional touch, and
delivering neatly-printed circulars to the effect that Mr. Sheldon,
surgeon-dentist, of 14 Fitzgeorge-street, had invented some novel
method of adjusting false teeth, incomparably superior to any existing
method, and that he had, further, patented an improvement on nature in
the way of coral gums, the name whereof was an unpronounceable
compound of Greek and Latin, calculated to awaken an awful reverence
in the unprofessional and unclassical mind.
The Fitzgeorgians shook their heads with prophetic solemnity as they