en, all the lights and the women dressed up to the nines, and the
music. The first act of the _Walkuere's_ all right, isn't it? And the end
of _Tristan_. Golly!"

His eyes were flashing now and his face was lit up so that he hardly
seemed the same man. There was a flush on his sallow, thin cheeks, and I
forgot that his voice was harsh and unpleasant. There was even a certain
charm about him.

"By George, I'd like to be in London to-night. Do you know the Pall Mall
restaurant? I used to go there a lot. Piccadilly Circus with the shops
all lit up, and the crowd. I think it's stunning to stand there and
watch the buses and taxis streaming along as though they'd never stop.
And I like the Strand too. What are those lines about God and Charing
Cross?"

I was taken aback.

"Thompson's, d'you mean?" I asked.

I quoted them.

_"And when so sad, thou canst not sadder,_
_Cry, and upon thy so sore loss_
_Shall shine the traffic of Jacob's ladder_
_Pitched between Heaven and Charing Cross."_

He gave a faint sigh.

"I've read _The Hound of Heaven_. It's a bit of all right."

"It's generally thought so," I murmured.

"You don't meet anybody here who's read anything. They think it's
swank."

There was a wistful look on his face, and I thought I divined the
feeling that made him come to me. I was a link with the world he
regretted and a life that he would know no more. Because not so very
long before I had been in the London which he loved, he looked upon me
with awe and envy. He had not spoken for five minutes perhaps when he
broke out with words that startled me by their intensity.

"I'm fed up," he said. "I'm fed up."

"Then why don't you clear out?" I asked.

His face grew sullen.

"My lungs are a bit dicky. I couldn't stand an English winter now."

At that moment another man joined us on the verandah and Lawson sank
into a moody silence.

"It's about time for a drain," said the new-comer. "Who'll have a drop
of Scotch with me? Lawson?"

Lawson seemed to arise from a distant world. He got up.

"Let's go down to the bar," he said.

When he left me I remained with a more kindly feeling towards him than I
should have expected. He puzzled and interested me. And a few days later
I met his wife. I knew they had been married for five or six years, and
I was surprised to see that she was still extremely young. When he
married her she could not have been more than sixteen. She was adorably
pretty