upon his
garb. A pint flask, well filled, was concealed within his garments, and
thus armed against even melancholy itself, he set forth fearlessly upon
his quest.

Droop had set out from the Panchronicon in the middle of the forenoon,
but, as he was obliged to distribute a large number of photographs among
his customers before going to London, it was not until some time after
Bacon had crossed the river and Rebecca had departed with the Queen that
he found himself on London Bridge.

On reaching the London side, he stood awhile in the ill-smelling street
near the fish markets gazing about him in quest of someone from whom he
might ask his way.

"Let's see!" he mused. "Bacon said Sir Percevall Hart, Boar's Head
Tavern, Eastcheap. First thing to find is Eastcheap, I guess. Hullo
there, forsooth!" he cried, addressing a baker's boy who was shuffling
by with his basket on his head. "Hullo there, boy--knave! What's the
shortest cut to Eastcheap?"

The lad stopped and stared hard at the bright wheels. He seemed thinking
hard.

"What mean you, master, by a cut?" he said, at length.

"Oh, pshaw--bother!" Droop exclaimed. "Jest tell me the way to
Eastcheap, wilt thee?"

The boy pointed straight north up New Fish Street.

"Eastcheap is yonder," he said, and turned away.

"Well, that's somethin'," muttered Droop. "Gives me a start, anyway."

Following the route pointed out, he retraced the very course along which
earlier in the day Rebecca had proceeded in the opposite direction,
thinking she saw him ahead of her. By dint of making numerous inquiries,
he found himself at length in a region of squalid residences and
second-rate shops and ale-houses, in the midst of which he finally
discovered the Boar's Head Tavern.

The entrance was by a dark archway, overhung by the upper stories of the
building, down which he could see a reddish glow coming and going, now
faint now bright, against the dead wall to the left. Passing cautiously
down this passage, he soon found that the glow was projected through a
half-curtained window to the right, and was caused by the dancing light
of a pleasant fire of logs within.

He thought it wise to reconnoitre before proceeding farther, and,
peeping through the small leaded panes, he found he could survey the
entire apartment.

The room into which Droop stood gazing was the common tap-room of the
inn, at that moment apparently the scene of a brisk altercation.

To the left of the grea