st hurrying towards the cab, when the
stranger who had got out of it settled the fare with satisfaction to
himself and turned sharply round.

The gas-light fell full on his face, and Mr. Bultitude recognised that
the form and features were those of no stranger--he had stumbled upon
the very last person he had expected or desired to meet just then--his
flight was intercepted by his son's schoolmaster, Dr. Grimstone himself!

The suddenness of the shock threw him completely off his balance. In an
ordinary way the encounter would not of course have discomposed him, but
now he would have given worlds for presence of mind enough either to
rush past to the cab and secure his only chance of freedom before the
Doctor had fully realised his intention, or else greet him affably and
calmly, and, taking him quietly aside, explain his awkward position with
an easy man-of-the-world air, which would ensure instant conviction.

But both courses were equally impossible. He stood there, right in Dr.
Grimstone's path, with terrified starting eyes and quivering limbs, more
like an unhappy guinea-pig expecting the advances of a boa, than a
British merchant in the presence of his son's schoolmaster! He was sick
and faint with alarm, and the consciousness that appearances were all
against him.

There was nothing in the least extraordinary in the fact of the Doctor's
presence at the station. Mr. Bultitude might easily have taken this
into account as a very likely contingency and have provided accordingly,
had he troubled to think, for it was Dr. Grimstone's custom, upon the
first day of the term, to come up to town and meet as many of his pupils
upon the platform as intended to return by a train previously specified
at the foot of the school-bills; and Paul had even expressly insisted
upon Dick's travelling under surveillance in this manner, thinking it
necessary to keep him out of premature mischief.

It makes a calamity doubly hard to bear when one looks back and sees by
what a trivial chance it has come upon us, and how slight an effort
would have averted it altogether; and Mr. Bultitude cursed his own
stupidity as he stood there, rooted to the ground, and saw the hansom (a
"patent safety" to him in sober earnest) drive off and abandon him to
his fate.

Dr. Grimstone bore down heavily upon him and Jolland, who had by this
time come up. He was a tall and imposing personage, with a strong black
beard and small angry grey eyes, slightly