ng of misery which I have so
frequently experienced since then, and I huddled myself up in a corner
of the deck.

There a young fellow-traveller saw the poor bundle of misery, and
tried to comfort me, and brought me what he thought was good for me,
not, however, without a certain merry twinkle in his eye and a few
kindly jokes at my expense. We landed at the docks in London, a real
drizzly day, rain and mist, and such a crowd rushing on shore that I
missed my cheerful friend and felt quite lost. In addition to all this
a porter had run away with my portmanteau, which contained my books
and MSS., in fact all my worldly goods. At that moment my young friend
reappeared, and seeing the plight I was in, came to my assistance.
"You stay here," he said, "and I will arrange everything for you;" and
so he did. He fetched a four-wheeler, put my luggage on the top,
bundled me inside, and drove with me through a maze of London streets
to his rooms in the Temple. Then, still knowing nothing about me, he
asked me to spend the night in his rooms, gave me a bed and everything
else I wanted for the night. The next morning he took me out to look
for lodgings, which we found in Essex Street, a small street leading
out of the Strand.

The room which I took was almost entirely filled by an immense
four-post bed. I had never seen such a structure before, and during
the first night that I slept in it, I was in constant fear that the
top of the bed would fall and smother me as in the German _Maerchen_.
When the landlady came in to see me in the morning, after asking how I
had slept, the first thing she said was, "But, sir, don't you want
another 'pillar'?" I looked bewildered, and said: "Why, what shall I
do with another pillar? and where will you put it?" She then touched
the pillows under my head and said, "Well, sir, you shall have
another 'pillar' to-morrow." "How shall I ever learn English," I said
to myself, "if a 'pillar' means really a soft pillow?"

But to return to my unknown friend, he came every day to show me
things which I ought to see in London, and brought me tickets for
theatres and concerts, which he said were sent to him. His name was
William Howard Russell, endeared to so many, high and low, under the
name of "Billy" Russell, the first and most brilliant war-correspondent
of _The Times_ during the Crimean War. He remained my warm and true
friend through life, and even now when we are both cripples, we
delight in meeting