Beaumont Buildings is scarcely the place one would choose in which to
spend a summer's day; for, though they reach unto the heavens, they are,
like most of their kind, somewhat stuffy, the dust of the great city in
all their nooks and corners, and the noise of the crowded life
penetrates even to the topmost flat.

The agent, a man of fine imagination and unlimited descriptive powers,
states that Beaumont Buildings is "situated in a fashionable locality";
but though Fashion may dwell close at hand, and its carriages sometimes
roll luxuriously through the street in which the Buildings tower, the
street is a grimy and rather squalid one, in which most of the houses are
shops--shops of the cheap and useful kind which cater for the poor.

There is always a noise and a blare in Beaumont Street. The butcher not
only displays his joints and "block ornaments" outside his shop, but
proclaims their excellence in stentorian tones; and the grocer and
fruiterer and fishmonger compete with the costermongers, who stand
yelling beside their barrows from early morn to late and gaslit night.

The smells of Beaumont Street are innumerable, and like unto the sea
shells for variety; and the scent of oranges, the pungent odor of fried
fish, from the shop down the side street, and that vague smell familiar
to all who dwell in the heart of London, rise and enter the open
windows.