Myddleton West still lived in the rooms over a fancy wool shop in Fetter Lane, which he had rented when he first came to London.  At times he had thought of going into one of the Inns close by, and had inspected chambers there, but he found so many ghosts on every landing that, although a man of fair courage, he became affrighted.  Over the fancy wool shop in Fetter Lane, no shadows interfered.  The Misses Langley kept his rooms carefully dusted, seeing that the panel photograph of an attractive young nurse, with a thoughtful face, never moved from its position of honour on the mantelpiece.  Myddleton West was getting on in the world and earning agreeable cheques every month; like many young men in this position, he found it difficult to increase his expenses without taking inordinate pains.  Consequently he gave up attempts in p. 70this direction, and remained in Fetter Lane, writing early and late on any subject that the world offered, finding this the only way to keep his mind from the thoughtful young woman of the panel portrait.  Rarely she took brief holiday from the ward of which she was sister, and they met by appointment at an aerated bread shop, where, over chocolate, she knitted her pretty forehead and talked with the concentrated wisdom of at least three hundred young women, on Myddleton West becoming urgent in his protestations of love, reproving him with a quaint air of austerity that at once annoyed and delighted him.  He found no argument in favour of their marriage that she did not instantly defeat by a proud reference to the work which Fate had assigned to her.  This was their only contentious subject; once free of it they were on excellent terms, and West took her on from the tea-rooms to private views and to afternoon performances at the theatre, and to concerts, and was an enchanted man until the moment came for her to fly back in her grey silk cloak to the hospital.

“Hullo!” said Myddleton West.

“Excuse me interrupting, sir, in your writing work.”

“Doesn’t matter, Miss Langley.”

“As I often say to my sister,” persisted the thin lady at the doorway, “no one can possibly write sense if they’re to be continually broken in on—if I may use the expression—and—”

“Somebody called to see me?” asked West, patiently.

“And badgered out of their life,” concluded the lady.  “I’m sure writing must be quite sufficient a tax on the brains without—”

“Miss Langley.”

“Sir to you.”

“Do I understand that some one has called to see me?”

“Mr. West,” confessed Miss Langley, with a burst of frankness, “some one has called to see you.”

“Then,” said Myddleton West, definitely, “show them up.”

“It isn’t a them, sir, it’s only a bit of a lad.”

“Very well, show him up.”

West finished the sentence which he had commenced, and then, hearing a slipping footstep, swung round in his chair again.  A boy in a long worn frock-coat, his bowler hat dented, stood at the doorway, white of face, his under lip not quite under control.

“Wha’ cheer?” said the boy with an effort to appear at ease.  “How goes it with you?”

“Wait a bit,” said Myddleton West, rising and standing in front of the fireplace.  “Let me see now if I can remember you.  Take off your hat.”  West dropped his pince-nez and peered across the room at the boy.  “I’ll have three shots,” he said presently.  “Your name is Cumberland.”

“Not a bit like it.”

“I met you—let me see—at an inquest in Hoxton some years ago; I saw you later at the police station.”

“You’re getting warmer.  Now try the letter L.”

“And your name is Lincoln.”

“Bit more to the left.”

“Lancaster!”

“A bull’s-eye!” said the white-faced boy approvingly.  “What’ll you ’ave, cigar or a cokernut?”  He staggered a little and caught the back of the chair.

p. 71“Hungry?” asked West sharply.

“You are a good guesser,” replied Bobbie, slipping to the chair.  “I ’aven’t had a thing to eat for—for a day and a half.”

Myddleton West snatched a serviette from the drawer and spread it on the table in front of the boy.  In another moment half a loaf of bread, a knuckle of ham, and cheese were on the serviette; in much less than another moment Bobbie had commenced.

“Excuse me wolfin’ me food,” said the boy with his mouth full.  “Don’t suppose you know what it is to be famishing.  I’ve had rather rough times the last few days.”

“But you went to the Poor Law schools surely.  Did you run away?”

“Yes,” said Bobbie ruefully.  “And I wish now I hadn’t.  Can I trouble you for a glass of water, sir?”

“Like some lemonade?” asked Myddleton West.

“So long as it’s moist, sir, and there’s plenty of it, I don’t mind what it is.”

“And you’re not getting on well as an independent man?”

“I’m getting on,” said Bobbie, holding up the glass with a trembling hand, “pretty awful.”  He drank and smacked his lips appreciatively, “Ah!” he said, “that’s something like!”

“Eat slowly.”

“Does it matter if I finish the bread, sir?”

“I shall be disappointed if you don’t.”

“Then rather’n cause you any annoyance,” said Bobbie with reviving spirits, “I’ll undertake to clear it all up.”

The meal finished, the boy asked for a cigarette, and, smoking this with great enjoyment, told Myddleton West his adventures.  The journey back from Brenchley had not been without drawbacks.  At Orpington, Bobbie had interfered on behalf of the gipsy’s wife, with the perfectly natural result that she had turned on him indignantly, and both man and wife had, in turns, thrashed him, and had then started him adrift without his cornet.  From Orpington to London he had walked.

“And now,” said Bobbie—“and now my difficulty is how to get back to the ’omes without looking a silly fool.  What would you advise, sir?”

“I should send a wire,” counselled Myddleton West promptly.  “Apo............