the temple of a dead religion, silent
and deserted. Here and there at one of the platforms, a train lay
becalmed; here and there a wandering footfall echoed; the cab-horses
outside stamped with startling reverberations on the stones; or from the
neighbouring wilderness of railway an engine snorted forth a whistle.
The main-line departure platform slumbered like the rest; the
booking-hutches closed; the backs of Mr Haggard's novels, with which
upon a weekday the bookstall shines emblazoned, discreetly hidden behind
dingy shutters; the rare officials, undisguisedly somnambulant; and the
customary loiterers, even to the middle-aged woman with the ulster and
the handbag, fled to more congenial scenes. As in the inmost dells of
some small tropic island the throbbing of the ocean lingers, so here a
faint pervading hum and trepidation told in every corner of surrounding
London.

At the hour already named, persons acquainted with John Dickson, of
Ballarat, and Ezra Thomas, of the United States of America, would have
been cheered to behold them enter through the booking-office.

'What names are we to take?' enquired the latter, anxiously adjusting
the window-glass spectacles which he had been suffered on this occasion
to assume.

'There's no choice for you, my boy,' returned Michael. 'Bent Pitman
or nothing. As for me, I think I look as if I might be called Appleby;
something agreeably old-world about Appleby--breathes of Devonshire
cider. Talking of which, suppose you wet your whistle? the interview is
likely to be trying.'

'I think I'll wait till afterwards,' returned Pitman; 'on the whole, I
think I'll wait till the thing's over. I don't know if it strikes you
as it does me; but the place seems deserted and silent, Mr Finsbury, and
filled with very singular echoes.'

'Kind of Jack-in-the-box feeling?' enquired Michael, 'as if all these
empty trains might be filled with policemen waiting for a signal? and
Sir Charles Warren perched among the girders with a silver whistle to
his lips? It's guilt, Pitman.'

In this uneasy frame of mind they walked nearly the whole length of
the departure platform, and at the western extremity became aware of a
slender figure standing back against a pillar. The figure was plainly
sunk into a deep abstraction; he was not aware of their approach, but
gazed far abroad over the sunlit station. Michael stopped.

'Holloa!' said he, 'can that be your advertiser? If so, I'm done with
it.' And