iving
him explicit orders as to the means.

CHAPTER III

DINNER AND AFTER

A small bottle of Boellinger was the means, and the celebration was
mostly done by Jones, for it came about that this stranger, Rochester,
whilst drinking little himself, managed by some method to keep up in
gaiety and in consequence of mind with the other, though every now and
then he would fall away from the point, as a ship without a steersman
falls away from the wind, and lapse for a moment into what an acute
observer might have deemed to be the fundamental dejection of his real
nature.

However, these lapses were only momentary, and did not interfere at all
with the gay spirits of his companion, who having found a friend in the
midst of the loneliness of London, and his twin image in the person of
that friend, was now pouring out his heart on every sort of subject,
always returning, and with the regularity of a pendulum to the fact of
the likeness, and the same question and statement.

"What's this, your name? Rochester! well, 'pon my soul this beats me."

Presently, the Bollinger finished, Jones found himself outside the Savoy
with this new found friend, walking in the gas lit Strand, and then,
without any transition rememberable, he found himself seated at dinner
in a private room of a French restaurant in Soho.

Afterwards he could remember parts of that dinner quite distinctly. He
could remember the chicken and salad, and a rum omelette, at which he
had laughed because it was on fire. He could remember Rochester's
gaiety, and a practical joke of some sort played on the waiter by
Rochester and ending in smashed plates--he could remember remonstrating
with the latter over his wild conduct. These things he could remember
afterwards, and also a few others--a place like Heaven--which was the
Leicester Lounge, and a place like the other place which was Leicester
Square.

A quarrel with a stranger, about what he could not tell, a taxi cab, in
which he was seated listening to Rochester's voice giving directions to
the driver, minute directions as to where he, Jones, was to be driven.

A lamp lit hall, and stairs up which he was being led.

Nothing more.

CHAPTER IV

CARLTON HOUSE TERRACE

He awoke from sleep in bed in the dark, with his mind clear as crystal
and hot shame clutching at his throat. Rochester was the first
recollection that came to him, and it was a recollection tinged with
evil. He felt like a man