hold of me as we drew nearer to London, and I watched the
fields and houses flying past with an impatience I could hardly
control.

We rushed through Hanwell and Acton, and then suddenly the huge bulk
of Wormwood Scrubbs Prison loomed up in the growing dusk away to
the right of the line. It was there that I had served my
"separates"--those first ghastly six months of solitary confinement
which make even Princetown or Portland a welcome and agreeable change.

At the sight of that poisonous place all the old bitterness welled up
in me afresh. For a moment even my freedom seemed to have lost its
sweetness, and I sat there with my hands clenched and black resentment
in my heart, staring out of those grim unlovely walls. It was lucky
for George that he was not with me in the carriage just then, for
I think I should have wrung his neck without troubling about any
explanations.

I was awakened from these pleasant reflections by a sudden blare of
light and noise on each side of the train. I sat up abruptly, with
a sort of guilty feeling that I had been on the verge of betraying
myself, and letting down the window, found that we were steaming
slowly into Paddington Station. In the farther corner of the carriage
my distinguished friend Sir George Frinton was beginning to collect
his belongings.

I just had time to pull myself together when the train stopped, and
out of the waiting line of porters a man stepped forward and flung
open the carriage door. He was about to possess himself of my fellow
passenger's bag when the latter waved him aside.

"You can attend to this gentleman," he said. "My own servant is
somewhere on the platform." Then turning to me, he added courteously:
"I wish you good-day, sir. I am pleased to have made your
acquaintance. I trust that we shall have the mutual pleasure of
meeting again."

I shook hands with him gravely. "I hope we shall," I replied. "It will
be a distinction that I shall vastly appreciate."

And of all unconscious prophecies that were ever launched, I fancy
this one was about the most accurate.

Preceded by the porter carrying my bag, I crossed the platform and
stepped into a waiting taxi.

"Where to, sir?" inquired the man.

I had a sudden wild impulse to say: "Drive me to George," but I
checked it just in time.

"You had better drive me slowly along Oxford Street," I said. "I want
to stop at one or two shops."

The man started the engine and, climbing back into his seat,