as of a Saturday, when I donned my best
coat and gloves, took down my silkiest hat, and, discarding the fumes
and flavours of the East, set out for Piccadilly. I still remained a
member of a decent club, and here I lunched in my glory, talked with
some human creatures, exchanged views on the affairs of the world,
smoked and lolled in comfortable chairs--in short, took my enjoyment
like a man-about-town, and then went back to earn my next week's
holiday.

Punctually to a minute I must be in the surgery in Pember Street at six
o'clock, and the horrid round must begin to circle again. I will
confess that there was a time when I could have loved that career as a
saunterer in West End streets. It appealed to me at five-and-twenty
almost as a romantic profession. Other young men whom I had known, at
school and college, had entered it, and some were, or appeared to be,
signal stars in that galaxy of wealth and beauty. My means, however,
denied me access, and at thirty I would have been content, after my
experience of hardships and poverty, to settle in some comfortable
suburb, not too distant from the sphere of radiance. As it was, I was
in chains in the slums of Wapping, and re-visited the glimpses of
Piccadilly once a week.

When I rose on an evening in November to go down to the river almost
for the last time, it was not a Saturday, but a Thursday, and the West
End seemed still a long way off. I had finished my round of cases, and
had sat waiting in my dingy surgery for patients. But none had come,
and in the enforced meditation that ensued, as I reviewed my past and
my prospects, my soul sickened in me. I wanted to breathe more
freely--I wanted more air and something more cheerful than the low
surgery lamp and the dismal lights that wagged in the street. I put on
my hat and passed down to the river.

It was quite dark, and the easterly drift had obscured and dirtied the
sky, so that when I came out by a landing which I knew now familiarly,
I could see only the lights across the water, and some tall spars and
funnels in the foreground. But the river at full tide champed audibly
against the wharves, and the various sounds of that restless port
assailed my ears--the roar of the unseen traffic behind me, the fluting
and screaming of whistles, the mingled shouts, oaths, and orders in the
distance, and the drone of that profound water under all.

I had stood for some minutes, drinking in the better air, when there
were voic