s that he is quite
surprised to find that he is very near the square where he lives; but
here, just in front of him, at the end of the narrow lane, is the
public-house with the coach and four engraved on the ground glass of the
lower part of the window, and above it the bottles full of coloured
water.

And here is the greengrocer's. How long is it since it was a
barber's?--surely a very little time. And there is the bootmaker's, with
its outside display of dangling shoes, and the row of naked gas jets
blown to pale blue specks and whistling red tongues by turns as a gust
sweeps across them.

This is his home, this little dingy, old-fashioned red-brick house at an
angle of the square, with a small paved space railed in before it. He
pushes open the old gate with the iron arch above, where an oil-lamp
used to hang, and hurries up to the door with the heavy shell-shaped
porch, impatient to get to the warmth and light which await him within.

The bell has got out of order, for only a faint jangle comes from below
as he rings; he waits a little and then pulls the handle again, more
sharply this time, and still no one comes.

When Betty does think proper to come up and open the door he will tell
her that it is too bad keeping a fellow standing out here, in the fog
and cold, all this time.... She is coming at last--no, it was fancy; it
seems as if Betty had slipped out for something, and perhaps the cook is
upstairs, and his mother may be dozing by the fire, as she has begun to
do of late.

Losing all patience, he gropes for the knocker, and, groping in vain,
begins to hammer with bare fists on the door, louder and louder, until
he is interrupted by a rough voice from the railings behind him.

'Now then, what are you up to there, eh?' says the voice, which belongs
to a burly policeman who has stopped suspiciously on the pavement.

'Why,' says Rolleston, 'I want to get in, and I can't make them hear me.
I wish you'd try what you can do, will you?'

The policeman comes slowly in to the gate. 'I dessay,' he says
jocularly. 'Is there anythink else? Come, suppose you move on.'

A curious kind of dread of he knows not what begins to creep over
Wilfred at this.

'Move on?' he cries, '_why_ should I move on? This is my house; don't
you see? I live here.'

'Now look 'ere, my joker, I don't want a job over this,' says the
constable, stolidly. 'You'll bring a crowd round in another minute if
you keep on that 'ammering.'