"''Ard luck for you, mate, this 'ere fog,' he remarked, 'arter you've
took all that trouble, too.' (He little knew how much.) 'But it's no go.
You'd better git 'ome whilst you can find yer way. This is goin' to be a
black 'un.'

"I thanked him for his sympathy and moved on into the darkening vapor.
Close to Spital Square I found a quiet corner where I quickly dismounted
the guys, covered them with the tarpaulin and, urged by a new anxiety
from the rapidly-growing density of the fog, groped my way into Norton
Folgate. Here I moved forward as quickly as I dared, turned up Great
Eastern Street and at length, to my great relief, came out into Old
Street.

"It was none too soon. As I entered the well-known thoroughfare, the fog
closed down into impenetrable obscurity. The world of visible objects
was extinguished and replaced by a chaos of confused sounds. Even the
end of my barrow faded away into spectral uncertainty, and the curb
against which I kept my left wheel grinding looked thin and remote.

"Opportune as the fog was, it was not without its dangers; of which the
most immediate was that I might lose my way. I set down the barrow, and,
detaching the little compass that I always carry on my watch-guard, laid
it on the tarpaulin. My course, as I knew, lay about west-southwest, and
with the compass before me, I could not go far wrong. Indeed, its
guidance was invaluable; without it I could never have found my way
through those miles of intricate streets. When a stationary wagon or
other obstruction sent me out into the road, it enabled me to pick up
the curb again unerringly. It mapped out the corners of intersecting
streets, it piloted me over the wide crossings of the City Road and
Aldersgate Street, and kept me happily confident of my direction as I
groped my way like a fogbound ship on an invisible sea.

"I went as quickly as was safe, but very warily, for a collision might
have been fatal. Listening intently, with my eye on the compass and my
wheel at the curb, I pushed on through the yellow void until a shadowy
post at a street corner revealed itself by its parish initials as that
at the intersection of Red Lion Street and Theobald's Row.

"I was nearly home. Another ten minutes' careful navigation brought me
to a corner which I believed to be the one opposite my own house. I
turned back a dozen paces, put down the barrow and crossed the
pavement--with the compass in my hand, lest I should not be able to find