fellow?
I hope he won't get his morals corrupted! Ah! So here we are! eh?"

He dismounted at the White Horse Cellar, and took a hasty dinner. His
great object was speed; and so he hardly allowed himself ten minutes to
finish his pint of port before he started into the street, to pursue
the errand on which he had come.

It was nearly nine o'clock, and he thought he would be able to reach
his destination in ten minutes. But it was otherwise ordered. His evil
genius took him down St. James Street. He tried to persuade himself
that it was the shortest way, though he knew all the time that it
wasn't. And so he was punished in this way: he had got no further than
Crockford's, when, in the glare of light opposite the door of that
establishment, he saw three men standing, one of whom was talking and
laughing in a tone perhaps a little louder than it is customary to use
in the streets nowadays. Buckley knew that voice well (better, perhaps,
among the crackle of musketry than in the streets of London), and, as
the broad-shouldered owner of it turned his jolly, handsome face
towards him, he could not suppress a low laugh of satisfaction. At the
same moment the before-mentioned man recognised him, and shouted out
his name.

"Busaco Buckley, by the Lord," he said, "revisiting once more the
glimpses of the gas-lamps! My dear old fellow, how are you, and where
do you come from?"

The Major found himself quickly placed under a lamp for inspection, and
surrounded by three old and well-beloved fellow-campaigners. What could
a man do under the circumstances? Nothing, if human and fallible, I
should say, but what the Major did--stay there, laughing and joking,
and talking of old times, and freshen up his honest heart, and shake
his honest sides with many an old half-forgotten tale of fun and
mischief.

"Now," he said at last, "you must let me go. You Barton (to the first
man he had recognised), you are a married man; what are you doing at
Crockford's?"

"The same as you are," said the other,--"standing outside the door. The
pavement's free, I suppose. I haven't been in such a place these five
years. Where are you staying, old boy?"

The Major told them, and they agreed to meet at breakfast next morning.
Then, after many farewells, and callings back, he pursued his way
towards the Strand, finding to his disgust that it was nearly ten
o'clock.

He, nevertheless, held on his way undiscouraged, and turning by degrees
into narrower