etween these two historic
characters, the janitor of the theatre put his head into the room and
reminded the celebrities that it was very late, whereupon both King and
Commoner rose, with some reluctance, and washed themselves; the King
becoming, when he put on the ordinary dress of an Englishman, Mr. James
Spence, while Cromwell, after a similar transformation, became Mr.
Sidney Ormond; and thus, with nothing of Royalty or Dictatorship about
them, the two strolled up the narrow street into the main thoroughfare
and entered their favourite midnight restaurant, where, over a belated
meal, they continued the discussion of the African project, which
Spence persisted in looking upon as one of the maddest expeditions that
had ever come to his knowledge; but the talk was futile, as most talk
is, and within a month from that time Ormond was on the ocean, his face
set towards Africa.

Another man took Ormond's place at the theatre, and Spence continued to
play his part, as the papers said, in his usual acceptable manner. He
heard from his friend, in due course, when he landed. Then at intervals
came one or two letters showing how he had surmounted the numerous
difficulties with which he had to contend. After a long interval came a
letter from the interior of Africa, sent to the coast by messenger.
Although at the beginning of this letter Ormond said he had but faint
hope of reaching his destination, he, nevertheless, gave a very
complete account of his wanderings and dealings with the natives, and
up to that point his journey seemed to be most satisfactory. He
inclosed several photographs, mostly very bad ones, which he had
managed to develop and print in the wilderness. One, however, of
himself was easily recognisable, and Spence had it copied and enlarged,
hanging the framed enlargement in whatever dressing-room fate assigned
to him; for Spence never had a long engagement at any one theatre. He
was a useful man who could take any part, but had no specialty, and
London was full of such.

For a long time he heard nothing from his friend, and the newspaper men
to whom Spence indefatigably furnished interesting items about the lone
explorer, began to look upon Ormond as an African Mrs. Harris, and the
paragraphs, to Spence's deep regret, failed to appear. The journalists,
who were a flippant lot, used to accost Spence with "Well, Jimmy, how's
your African friend?" and the more he tried to convince them, the less
they believed i