woman had shattered his hopes at the very moment of
their fulfilment. It was fate again!

As he stood, fiercely gripping the bars of the gate, he heard Coggs'
hateful voice again.

"Hallo! so you haven't got the _Globe_ and the other thing after all,
then; they've shut you out?"

"Yes," said Mr. Bultitude in a hollow voice; "they've shut me out!"

16. _Hard Pressed_

"Mark the poor wretch, to overshoot his troubles,
How he outruns the wind, and with what care
He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles:
The many musets through the which he goes
Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes."

As soon as the gate was opened, Paul went through mechanically with the
others on to the platform, and waited at the bookstall while they
changed the paper. He knew well enough that what had seemed at the time
a stroke of supreme cunning would now only land him in fresh
difficulties, if indeed it did not lead to the detection of his scheme.
But he dared not interfere and prevent them from making the unlucky
exchange. Something seemed to tie his tongue, and in sullen leaden
apathy he resigned himself to whatever might be in store for him.

They passed out again by the booking-office. There was the old lady
still at the pigeon-hole, trying to persuade the much-enduring clerk to
restore a lucky sixpence she had given him by mistake, and was quite
unable to describe. Mr. Bultitude would have given much just then to go
up and shake her into hysterics, or curse her bitterly for the mischief
she had done; but he refrained, either from an innate chivalry, or from
a feeling that such an outburst would be ill-judged.

So, silent and miserable, with slow step and hanging head, he set out
with his gaolers to render himself up once more at his house of
bondage--a sort of involuntary Regulus, without the oath.

"Dickie, you were very anxious to run just now," observed Chawner,
after they had gone some distance on their homeward way.

"We were late for tea--late for tea," explained Paul hastily.

"If you think the tea worth racing like that for, I don't," said Coggs
viciously; "it's muck."

"You don't catch me racing, except for something worth having," said
Coker.

One more flash of distinct inspiration came to Paul's aid in the very
depths of his gloom. It was, in fact, a hazy recollection from English
history of the ruse by which Edward I., when a prince, contrived to
escape from his captors