llently together, so we had
furnished our pleasant little six-roomed, second-floor flat quite
comfortably, and as Harry had looked after the artistic side of its
furnishings--aided by a pal of his, an impecunious artist who lived
in Chelsea--it certainly was a very passable bachelor's snuggery.

The small front room commanded a view over the river with works,
wharves, and high factory chimneys on the Middlesex shore. To the
left, across the long suspension bridge, was Chiswick and Kew, while
to the right lay Putney and Chelsea. Before the house flowed the great
broad muddy river where once each year the University eights flashed
past, while ever and anon, year in, year out, noisy tugs towed strings
of black barges up and down the stream.

Away across the high-road to the left were the great reservoirs of
London's water works, a huge open space always fresh and breezy even
within a stone's throw of stifled Hammersmith, with its "tubes" and
its dancing-halls. Used as we both had been to years of roughing it,
the spot had taken our fancy, and we got on famously together. On most
evenings we were out, but sometimes, before we turned in, we would sit
and smoke and laugh over our stirring adventures and humorous
incidents in the war, and the "scraps" we had been safely through.

Since his demobilization Harry had fallen deeply in love with an
extremely pretty girl named Norah Peyton, who lived in a house
overlooking the Terrace Gardens at Richmond, and whose father was
partner in a firm of well-known importers in Mincing Lane. As for
myself, I was "unattached." Like every other young man of my age I
had, of course, had several little affairs of the heart, all of which
had, however, died within a few short weeks.

Now it happened that on the evening of the day prior to the opening of
this strange series of adventures which befell me, I was in the city
of York, whither I had gone on business for the firm, and as my
old-fashioned employers allowed first-class travelling expenses, I
entered an empty first-class compartment of the London express which
left York at six-twenty-three, and was due at King's Cross at
ten-thirty.

A few moments later a fellow-passenger appeared, a well-dressed,
middle-aged man, who asked me in French if the train went to London,
and on my replying in the affirmative, he thanked me profusely and
joined me.

"I regret, m'sieur, that I, alas! know so very leetle of your
Engleesh," he remarked pleas