time! Ring--ghost effect again--same old grey lady!
She asks me, in hollow tones, what I want. I ask her whether I left my
umbrella here (full of resource!) "No!" "Oh!" Back-street again after
that.

4.40.--Even the back-streets will have none of me! I grow morbid.
Remember words of song, entreating vague somethings (perhaps stars)
"to smile on their vagabond boy"--no one smiles on me. And _I_ to have
vapoured about "throwing the handkerchief." Fool--fool!... They are
more sympathetic in the back-streets, though. "Starmouth is very
full!" They say, complacently, "they don't know if there's any place I
_could_ get into, not to say at once--they really _don't_!"

5 P.M.--Back on the Esplanade again. Why, I certainly haven't been
_here_ before. Ring. While I am waiting for some one to appear, face
rises at window--_the measly boy!_ Confound these terrace-houses, all
alike! This time I _don't_ wait--I bolt. They will think I am a clown
out for a holiday, but I can't help that.

5.15.--No, I must draw the line somewhere. At "Hatfield House," (good
address this) landlady appears with eruptive face, powdered--effect
not entirely happy--but I waive that. She has rooms--but the
sitting-room is out at the end of a yard, and I am to get to my bed
room through the kitchen! Can't write an epoch-making drama under
those conditions.

5.30.--I am growing humbler--I would almost take a coal-cellar
now. Think I will go back to Hatfield and recant.... I have. "Very
sorry--this moment let".... "Oh!"

5.35.--_At last!_ May choicest blessings light upon the head of
PLAPPER!--or rather of Mrs. PLAPPER, as her husband is out. She has
taken me in! Charming rooms--not actually facing the sea, but with
capital view of it round corner from bow-window. PLAPPER is an
optician--wonder whether it is weak eyes, or wifely duty, that
makes Mrs. P. wear blue spectacles? Everything arranged--terms most
reasonable--now to recover luggage. Stop; better ask address--or I
might never be able to find my optician again--like _Mrs. Barrett
Browning_ and her lost Bower! "You've only got to use PLAPPER'S name,
Sir, anywhere, and it will be all right," says Mrs. P. with natural
pride. Very convenient. For instance: _Stern Constable_ (to me).
"Can't come in here, Sir." _Myself._ "Can't I, though? _PLAPPER!_" And
in I go! Or I am in a scrape of some sort: "Have you anything to say?"
asks the Inspector. I whisper in his ear, "PLAPPER!" And they grovel
and relea