e landlady, and I told him that I had hired and paid for the same
accommodation through the landlord. The stranger claimed precedence, and
was good enough to tell me that if he found me attempting to infringe
upon his privileges he would take the liberty of throwing me out of the
window. I was five-and-twenty at this time, stood five feet eleven in my
socks, and reckoned myself a pretty good man with my hands, as a pupil
of the old Slasher had a right to be, and in considerable wrath at the
stranger's insolence, I drew myself up shoulder to shoulder with him,
and told him hotly that that was a game that two might play at. There
came a quiet humorous gleam into his eye, and when he looked at me for
half a minute he burst into a great roar of laughter. "Newspaper man?"
he asked me. I answered in the affirmative, and he stretched out an
unwashed hand. "I am Forbes," he said. "I am here for the _Daily News_;
if I can't bully a man I make friends with him."

Now Forbes for years had been one of my heroes and I was simply
delighted to meet him. We struck up an immediate friendship but in
an hour he turned into bed and I saw him no more until the following
morning when I believed that I had made of him an enemy for life. I
learned at the mine head the hour at which the rescue party was to
descend and I made arrangements to join it. Then I walked in to Walsall
and there hired a saddle horse which I bestowed in the stables of the
beer shop. This done, I made my way back to the mine and found the party
just in readiness to make the descent. There were six of us, all told,
and the little contingent was captained by Mr Walter Neas, who, partly
as a reward for gallantry as I believe, was afterwards appointed manager
of Her Majesty's mines in Warora, Central India. We were all lowered in
a skip together and the position of the air-way having been precisely
ascertained one man lay face downwards on the skip's bottom and broke
through the brickwork with a pick. The sullen waters of the pool were
only some eight or ten feet beneath us. The bricks splashed in one
after the other until there was a space large enough for a man to
whirl himself into it, and one by one we entered the passage. It was a
tremendous scramble, and here and there the roof of the place had sunk
so low that we had hard work to squeeze through on our hands and knees.
In places we had almost space to walk upright. We came at last upon a
face of brick, the wall of the s