Show SILK HATS FOR HIRE sign in old dickens quarters quarter london do n forced to go under modern pressure Pr eure london among the landmarks of london that have of late are some rome old shops in houghton street ICIng sway a district that dick ens loved the irruption of the housebreaker into this little thoroughfare has done more moie to disturb old build ings to make way for modern office blocks it has displaced an old world orld little man christopher dark clark whose tahosa business for years lias has been one of 0 tho the queerest in all london till the london county council lalli reform reforming ing hands on the dini dim little shop it bore in the window the ric nc tice silk hat lent on hire for 01 weddings and I 1 ti ner a I 1 the fee old 1 man ii seemed a strangely afi 0 out UE of place in the daylight that had been let into that hitherto dingy bypath of the metropolis as he stood by the door I 1 for rent respectability a day or two before closing the shop for the last time and retiring as an old age pensioner A big white apron enveloped his bent form and he peered suspiciously at the questioner who asked him how ho be fared gradually however lie he thawed and admitted that lie he was eighty four years 0 old id certainly I 1 lime have had a good business this usei used to be a good street for trade lawyers used to use it as a route to the courts but all these changes are taking the life out of london folks now get underground like moles when they want to move about the city and every mes meb singer boy who wants to sports a cheap tall hat what sort of customers most respectable spec table customers I 1 have always had it if a silk hat was wanted for some special occasion I 1 would supply a good one for a shilling a day a hat no man could tall fall to be proud to go out in A shilling a day mark you the old man lovingly polished a shining specimen of 0 his head bend gear with his sleeve and the hat bat to be returned to me in the condition in which it left the shop should a client require a list hat for more than a day a reduction would be nade made there was no fixed charge there were times when a man positively had to have hae a silk hat and well I 1 was riot not too hard bard on the man whose fortune was small no trade latterly has not been always brisk it has sometimes hap bened that more than a month has passed before a client has come in here to hire a hat though sometimes I 1 might have as many as four in a day it used to be very different not even a funeral la Is conducted decently nowadays everything Is rush and tear and the old man sighed as he be thought of the former days when times limes were good and londoners Lon doners jogged bogged comfortably along with the silk hat as their badge of respectability on special oc cas casiono lons |