s doing a water color from a sketch
made that summer at Walberswick, a quaint fishing village on the Suffolk
coast. He blobbed on the paint, working spasmodically, and occasionally
he refreshed himself at the piano with a verse of the latest popular
song.

"By Jove, this is Friday!" he said suddenly; "and I'm due at the London
Sketch Club to-night. Will you come there and have supper with me at
nine?"

"Sorry, but I can't," Jack replied, remembering his promise to Sir
Lucius Chesney. "I'm off now. I'll drop in to-morrow and get my
dress-suit--don't trouble to send it."

Dickens vainly urged a change of mind. Jack was not to be coerced, and,
putting on a borrowed cap and overcoat, he left the studio. He walked to
Sloane square, and took a train to the Temple; but he was so absorbed
in a paper that he was carried past his station. He got out at
Blackfriars, and lingered doubtfully on the greasy pavement, staring at
the sea of traffic surging in the thick, yellow fog. He had reached
another turning-point in his life, but he did not know it.

"I'll go to the 'Cheese,'" he decided, "and have some supper."

CHAPTER XXV.

A FRUITLESS ERRAND.

The merest trifles often have far-reaching results, and Jack's careless
decision, prompted by a hungry stomach, made him the puppet of fate. The
crossing at Blackfriars station is the most dangerous in London, and he
did not reach the other side without much delay and several narrow
escapes. It was a shoulder-and-elbow fight to the mouth of the dingy
little court in which is the noted hostelry he sought, and then
compensation and a haven of rest--the dining-room of the "Cheshire
Cheese!" Here there was no trace of the fog, and the rumble of wheels
was hushed to a soothing murmur. An old-world air pervaded the place,
with its low ceiling and sawdust-sprinkled floor, its well-worn benches
and tables and paneling. The engravings on the walls added to the charm,
and the head waiter might have stepped from a page of Dickens. Savory
smells abounded, and the kettle rested on the hob over the big
fireplace, to the right of which Doctor Johnson's favorite seat spoke
eloquently of the great lexicographer, who in time past was wont to
foregather here with his friends.

Jack was too hungry to be sentimental. He sat down in one of the
high-backed compartments, and, glancing indifferently at a man sitting
opposite to him, he recognized the editor of the _Illustrated Universe_.

"By