Should I find the number I sought attached to one of the crude, unmeaning dwellings I was constantly passing, or to one of mellower aspect and possibly historic association?
I own that I felt a decided curiosity on this point, and congratulated myself greatly when I had left behind me a peculiarly obnoxious monstrosity in stone, whose imposing proportions might reasonably commend themselves to the necessities, if not to the taste of the city's mayor.
A little shop, one story in height and old enough for its simple wooden walls to cry aloud for paint, stood out from the middle of a row of cheap brick houses.

Directly opposite it were two conspicuous dwellings, neither of them new and one of them ancient as the street itself.

They stood fairly close together, with an alley running between.

From the number I had now reached it was evident that the mayor lived in one of these.

Happily it was in the fresher and more inviting one.