Curiously enough, the preference of the Lady Romance herself is for just such dull places.

These dreary, soot-begrimed streets are the very streets she loves best to appear in, on a sudden, some astonished day, with a sound of silk skirts and a spring wind of attar of roses.

Contrast, surprise,--these are her very soul.

Dull places and bright people,--these she loves to bring together, and watch for laughter and tears.

You are never safe from Romance, and the place to seek her is never the place where she was last found.
Well, at all events, it is to Gasometer Street and New Zion that you are respectfully invited, and before you decline the invitation with a shrug, I will tell you this about the gasometer.