found that both the tailor and the foreman were out
of town. His publisher,--for our Vicar did a little in the way of
light literature on social subjects, and had brought out a pretty
volume in green and gold on the half-profit system, intending to give
his share to a certain county hospital,--his publisher had been in
the north since the 12th, and would not be back for three weeks. He
found, however, a confidential young man who was able to tell him
that the hospital need not increase the number of its wards on this
occasion. He had dropped down to Dean's Yard to see a clerical
friend,--but the house was shut up and he could not even get an
answer. He sauntered into the Abbey, and found them mending the
organ. He got into a cab and was driven hither and thither because
all the streets were pulled up. He called at the War-Office to
see a young clerk, and found one old messenger fast asleep in
his arm-chair. "Gone for his holiday, sir," said the man in the
arm-chair, speaking amidst his dreams, without waiting to hear the
particular name of the young clerk who was wanted. And yet, when he
got to the theatre, it was so full that he could hardly find a seat
on which to sit. In all the world around us there is nothing more
singular than the emptiness and the fullness of London.

He was up early the next morning and breakfasted before he went out,
thinking that even should he succeed in catching the Squire, he would
not be able to persuade the unhappy man to come and breakfast with
him. At a little before nine he was in Pall-Mall, walking up and down
before the club, and as the clocks struck the hour he began to be
impatient. The porter had said that Gilmore always came exactly at
nine, and within two minutes after that hour the Vicar began to feel
that his friend was breaking an engagement and behaving badly to him.
By ten minutes past, the idea had got into his head that all the
people in Pall-Mall were watching him, and at the quarter he was
angry and unhappy. He had just counted the seconds up to twenty
minutes, and had begun to consider that it would be absurd for him to
walk there all the day, when he saw the Squire coming slowly along
the street. He had been afraid to make himself comfortable within the
club, and there to wait for his friend's coming, lest Gilmore should
have escaped him, not choosing to be thus caught by any one;--and
even now he had his fear lest his quarry should slip through his
fingers. He waite