riking, and, referring
to his watch, found the evening to have so slipped away, that they were
striking twelve. As he put up his watch again, his eyes met those of his
reflection in the chimney-glass.

"Why it's your birthday already," he said, smiling. "You are looking
very well. I wish you many happy returns of the day."

He had never before bestowed that wish upon himself. "By Jupiter!" he
discovered, "it alters the whole case of running away from one's
birthday! It's a thing to explain to Phoebe. Besides, here is quite a
long story to tell her, that has sprung out of the road with no story.
I'll go back, instead of going on. I'll go back by my friend Lamps's Up
X presently."

He went back to Mugby Junction, and in point of fact he established
himself at Mugby Junction. It was the convenient place to live in, for
brightening Phoebe's life. It was the convenient place to live in, for
having her taught music by Beatrice. It was the convenient place to live
in, for occasionally borrowing Polly. It was the convenient place to
live in, for being joined at will to all sorts of agreeable places and
persons. So, he became settled there, and, his house standing in an
elevated situation, it is noteworthy of him in conclusion, as Polly
herself might (not irreverently) have put it:

There was an Old Barbox who lived on a hill,
And if he ain't gone, he lives there still.

HERE FOLLOWS THE SUBSTANCE OF WHAT WAS SEEN, HEARD, OR OTHERWISE PICKED
UP, BY THE GENTLEMAN FOR NOWHERE, IN HIS CAREFUL STUDY OF THE JUNCTION.

MAIN LINE
THE BOY AT MUGBY

I am The Boy at Mugby. That's about what _I_ am.

You don't know what I mean? What a pity! But I think you do. I think
you must. Look here. I am the Boy at what is called The Refreshment
Room at Mugby Junction, and what's proudest boast is, that it never yet
refreshed a mortal being.

Up in a corner of the Down Refreshment Room at Mugby Junction, in the
height of twenty-seven cross draughts (I've often counted 'em while they
brush the First Class hair twenty-seven ways), behind the bottles, among
the glasses, bounded on the nor'-west by the beer, stood pretty far to
the right of a metallic object that's at times the tea-urn and at times
the soup-tureen, according to the nature of the last twang imparted to
its contents which are the same groundwork, fended off from the traveller
by a barrier of stale sponge-cakes erected atop of the counter, and
l