Of this some twenty-five pounds was
destined to complete the payment that morning of my passage money. The
cashier was able to furnish me with Bank of England notes for two
hundred pounds, and the balance, for convenience and ready-money, I
drew in Australian notes and gold. Never before having handled at one
time a greater sum than, say, five-and-twenty pounds, it was with a
sense of being a good deal of a capitalist that I buttoned my coat as
I emerged from the bank, and set out for the shipping-office. The sun
shone warmly. My arrangements were all completed. I was going home.
Yes, it was with something of an air, no doubt, that I took the
pavement, humming as I passed along the bright side of Pitt Street.

All my life I have had a fondness for byways. Main thoroughfares
between the two great arteries, Pitt and George Street, were at my
service; but I preferred a narrow alley which brings one to the back
premises of Messrs. Hunt and Carton's, the wholesale stationers.
Bearing to the left through that firm's stableyard, one passes through
a little arched opening which debouches upon Tinckton Street, whence
in twenty paces one reaches George Street at a point close to the
office for which I was bound.

I can see now the sleek-sided lorry horses in Hunt and Carton's yard, and
I recall precisely the odour of the place as I passed through it that
morning; the heavy, flat wads of blue-wrapped paper, and the fluttering
bits of straw; the stamp of a draught horse's foot on cobble-stones. I
saw the black, clean-cut shadow of the arched place. I turned half round
to note the cause of a soft sound behind me. And just then came the dull
roar of a detonation, in the same instant that a huge weight crashed upon
me, and I fell down, down, down into the very bowels of the earth....

* * * * *

'No actual danger, I think. Excuse me, nurse!'

Those were the first words I heard. The first I spoke, I believe,
were:

'I suppose the arch collapsed?'

'Ah! To be sure, yes. There was quite a collapse, wasn't there?' said
some one blandly. 'However, you're all right now. Just open your mouth
a little, please. That's right. Better? Ah! H'm! Yes, there's bound to
be pain in the head; but we'll soon have that a bit easier.'

After that, it seemed to me that I began to take some kind of warm
drink, and to talk almost at once. As a fact, I believe there was
another somnolent interval of an hour or so before I did actually
reach this st