latform here. 'Tis within
sight o' the old home, too, or ruther o' the spot where the old home
used to be: an' though 'tis little notice she seems to take o' things,
one never can tell if poor creatures in that state _hain't_ pleased
behind all their dazed looks. What do you think, sir?"

The whistle sounded up the valley, and mercifully prevented my answer.
I saw the woman for an instant as she was brought out of the train and
carried to the bench. She did not recognise the man she had married
fifty years before: but as we moved out of the station, he was sitting
beside her, his face transfigured with a solemn joy.

SCHOOL FRIENDS.

"What ho, there!"

At this feudal summons I turned, and spied the Bashaw elbowing his way
towards me through the Fleet Street crowd, his hat and tie askew and
his big face a red beacon of goodwill. He fell on my neck, and we
embraced.

"Is me recreant child returned? Is he tired at last av annihilatin'
all that's made to a green thought in a green shade? An' did he
homesickun by the Cornish Coast for the Street that Niver Sleeps,
an' the whirroo an' stink av her, an' the _foomum et opase
strepitumke_--to drink delight av battle with his peers, an' see the
great Achilles whom he knew--meanin' meself?" The Bashaw's style in
conversation, as in print, bristles with allusion.

I shook my head.

"I go back to-morrow, I hope. Business brought me up, and as soon as
it's settled I pack."

"Too quick despairer--but I take it ye'll be bound just now for the
Cheese. Right y'are; and I'll do meself the honour to lunch wid ye, at
your expense."

Everyone knows and loves the Bashaw, _alias_ the O'Driscoll, that
genial failure. Generations of Fleet Street youths have taken advice
and help from him: have prospered, grown reputable, rich, and even
famous: and have left him where he stood. Nobody can remember the time
when O'Driscoll was not; though, to judge from his appearance, he must
have stepped upon the town from between the covers of an illustrated
keepsake, such as our grandmothers loved--so closely he resembles the
Corsair of that period, with his ripe cheeks, melting eyes, and black
curls that twist like the young tendrils of a vine. The curls are
dyed now-a-days, and his waist is not what it used to be in the
picture-books; but time has worn nothing off his temper. He is
perennially enthusiastic, and can still beat any journalist in London
in describing a Lord Mayor's Show.