When he left school he went to Oxford. His life there was as lonely
as it had been at school. The dirty, untidy, ink-stained, and
chemical-stained little boy grew up into a tall, lank, slovenly-dressed
man, who kept entirely to himself, not because he cherished any dislike
or disdain for his fellow-creatures, but because he seemed to be
entirely absorbed in his own thoughts and isolated from the world by a
barrier of dreams.

He did well at Oxford, and when he went down he passed high into the
Civil Service and became a clerk in a Government office. There he kept
as much to himself as ever. He did his work rapidly and well, for this
man, who seemed so slovenly in his person, had an accurate mind, and was
what was called a good clerk, although his incurable absent-mindedness
once or twice caused him to forget certain matters of importance.

His fellow clerks treated him as a crank and as a joke, but none of
them, try as they would, could get to know him or win his confidence.
They used to wonder what Fletcher did with his spare time, what were
his pursuits, what were his hobbies, if he had any. They suspected that
Fletcher had some hobby of an engrossing kind, since in everyday life he
conveyed the impression of a man who is walking in his sleep, who acts
mechanically and automatically. Somewhere else, they thought, in some
other circumstances, he must surely wake up and take a living interest
in somebody or in something.

Yet had they followed him home to his small room in Canterbury-mansions
they would have been astonished. For when he returned from the office
after a hard day's work he would do nothing more engrossing than slowly
to turn over the leaves of a book in which there were elaborate drawings
and diagrams of locomotives and other kinds of engines. And on Sunday he
would take a train to one of the large junctions and spend the whole
day in watching express trains go past, and in the evening would return
again to London.

One day after he had returned from the office somewhat earlier than
usual, he was telephoned for. He had no telephone in his own room, but
he could use a public telephone which was attached to the building. He
went into the small box, but found on reaching the telephone that he had
been cut off by the exchange. He imagined that he had been rung up by
the office, so he asked to be given their number. As he did so his eye
caught an advertisement which was hung just over the telephone. It wa