lamps. A
policeman, passing on his beat, paused to inspect the operation and then
moved on, and the car resumed its way, driving into a world of twilight
and scented hedges, where the glowworms were lighting up, and over which
the sky was showing a silvery sprinkle of stars.

Two more towns they passed unhindered, and then came the fringe of
London, a maze of lights and ways and houses, tram lines, and then an
endless road, half road, half street, lines of shops, lines of old
houses and semi gardens.

Jim turned in his seat. "This here's the Kent Road," said he. "We're
about the middle of it, which part did you want?"

"This will do," said Jones, "pull her up."

He got out, took the four and sixpence from his pocket, and gave Jim two
shillings for a tip.

"Going all the way back to-night?" asked he, as he wriggled out of the
coat, and handed it over with the goggles.

"No," said Jim. "I'll stop at the last pub we passed for the night.
There ain't no use over taxin' a car."

"Well, good night to you," said Jones. He watched the car turning and
vanishing, then, with a feeling of freedom he had never before
experienced, he pushed on London-wards.

With only two and sixpence in his pocket, he would have to wander about
all night, or sit on the embankment. He had several times seen the
outcasts on the embankment seats at night, and pitied them; he did not
pity them now. They were free men and women.

The wind had died away and the night was sultry, much pleasanter out of
doors than in, a general term that did not apply to the Old Kent Road.

The old road leading down to Kent was once, no doubt, a pleasant enough
place, but pleasure had long forsaken it, and cleanliness. It was here
that David Copperfield sold his jacket, and the old clothiers' shops are
so antiquated that any of them might have been the scene of the
purchase. To-night the old Kent Road was swarming, and the further Jones
advanced towards the river the thicker seemed the throng.

At a flaring public house, and for the price of a shilling, he obtained
enough food in the way of sausages and mashed potatoes, to satisfy his
hunger, a half pint tankard of beer completed the satisfaction of his
inner man, and having bought a couple of packets of navy cut cigarettes
and a box of matches, he left the place and pursued his way towards the
river.

He had exactly tenpence in his pocket, and he fell to thinking as he
walked, of the extraordinary monetary f