quite such a magnificent sum now as it had done then; he had shifted his
point of view.

It was too clear that the stone must have carried out his thoughtless
wish with scrupulous and conscientious exactness in every detail. He had
wanted, or said he wanted, to be a boy again like Dick, and accordingly
he had become a perfect duplicate, even to the contents of the pockets.
Evidently nothing on the face of things showed the slightest difference.
Yet--and here lay the sting of the metamorphosis--he was conscious under
it all of being his old original self, in utter discordance with the
youthful form in which he was an unwilling prisoner.

By this time the cab had driven up the sharp incline, and under the high
pointed archway of St. Pancras terminus, and now drew up with a jerk
against the steps leading to the booking office.

Paul sprang out at once in a violent passion. "Here, you, Clegg!" he
said, "why the devil didn't you pull up when I told you? eh?"

Clegg was a burly, red-faced man, with a husky voice and a general
manner which conveyed the impression that he regarded teetotalism, as a
principle, with something more than disapproval.

"Why didn't I pull up?" he said, bending stiffly down from his box.
"'Cause I didn't want to lose a good customer, that's why I didn't pull
up!"

"Do you mean to say you don't know me?"

"Know yer?" said Clegg, with an approach to sentiment: "I've knowed yer
when you was a babby in frocks. I've knowed yer fust nuss (and a fine
young woman she were till she took to drinking, as has been the ruin of
many). I've knowed yer in Infancy's hour and in yer byhood's bloom! I've
druv yer to this 'ere werry station twice afore. Know yer!"

Paul saw the uselessness of arguing with him. "Then, ah--drive me back
at once. Let those boxes alone. I--I've important business at home which
I'd forgotten."

Clegg gave a vinous wink. "Lor, yer at it agin," he said with
admiration. "What a artful young limb it is! But it ain't what yer may
call good enough, so to speak, it ain't. Clegg don't do that no more!"

"Don't do what?" asked Paul.

"Don't drive no young gents as is a-bein' sent to school back agin into
their family's bosims," said Clegg sententiously. "You was took ill
sudden in my cab the larst time. Offal bad you was, to be sure--to hear
ye, and I druv' yer back; and I never got no return fare, I didn't, and
yer par he made hisself downright nasty over it, said as if it occurred
agin