waterspout of an unpretentious house situate in a side
street off Soho. I put it to Providence as man to man. "Let me only
get out of this," I think were the muttered words I used, "and no more
'sport' for me." Providence closed on the offer, and did let me get out
of it. True, it was a complicated "get out," involving a broken skylight
and three gas globes, two hours in a coal cellar, and a sovereign to
a potman for the loan of an ulster; and when at last, secure in my
chamber, I took stock of myself--what was left of me,--I could not
but reflect that Providence might have done the job neater. Yet I
experienced no desire to escape the terms of the covenant; my inclining
for the future was towards a life of simplicity.

Accordingly, I cast about for a new character, and found one to suit me.
The German professor was becoming popular as a hero about this period.
He wore his hair long and was otherwise untidy, but he had "a heart of
steel," occasionally of gold. The majority of folks in the book, judging
him from his exterior together with his conversation--in broken English,
dealing chiefly with his dead mother and his little sister Lisa,--dubbed
him uninteresting, but then they did not know about the heart. His chief
possession was a lame dog which he had rescued from a brutal mob; and
when he was not talking broken English he was nursing this dog.

But his speciality was stopping runaway horses, thereby saving the
heroine's life. This, combined with the broken English and the dog,
rendered him irresistible.

He seemed a peaceful, amiable sort of creature, and I decided to try
him. I could not of course be a German professor, but I could, and did,
wear my hair long in spite of much public advice to the contrary, voiced
chiefly by small boys. I endeavoured to obtain possession of a lame
dog, but failed. A one-eyed dealer in Seven Dials, to whom, as a last
resource, I applied, offered to lame one for me for an extra
five shillings, but this suggestion I declined. I came across an
uncanny-looking mongrel late one night. He was not lame, but he seemed
pretty sick; and, feeling I was not robbing anybody of anything
very valuable, I lured him home and nursed him. I fancy I must have
over-nursed him. He got so healthy in the end, there was no doing
anything with him. He was an ill-conditioned cur, and he was too old to
be taught. He became the curse of the neighbourhood. His idea of sport
was killing chickens and sneaking ra