ited gentleman, the railway-carriage itself, to say nothing
of all the exciting experiences of the morning--all, all had vanished,
leaving behind only the trace of the impulse to search. Nothing else!
He stood looking bewildered, then spoke thickly.

"I am giving trouble," said he. Then the two ladies and the gentleman,
whom he saw dimly and did not know, looked at one another, each
perhaps to see if one of the others would speak first. In the end the
lady who was a woman nodded to the gentleman to speak, and then the
lady who was a girl confirmed her by what was little more than an
intention to nod, not quite unmixed with a mischievous enjoyment at
the devolution of the duty of speech on the gentleman. It twinkled in
her closed lips. But the gentleman didn't seem overwhelmed with
embarrassment. He spoke as if he was used to things.

"You have had an accident, sir.... On the railway.... In the Twopenny
Tube.... Yes, you'll remember all about it presently.... Yes, I'm a
doctor.... Yes, we want you to come in and sit down and rest till
you're better.... No, it won't be a long job. _You'll_ soon come
round.... What?... Oh no, no trouble at all! It's this lady's house,
and she wants you to come in." The speaker seems to guess at the right
meanings, as one guesses in the jaws of the telephone, perhaps with
more confidence. But there was but little audible articulation on the
other's part.

He seemed not to want much support--chiefly guidance. He was taken
down the half-dozen steps that flanked a grass slope down to a stone
paving, and through a door under the more numerous steps he had
escaped climbing, and into a breakfast-room flush with the kitchen,
opening on a small garden at the back. There was the marriage of Queen
Victoria and Prince Albert over the chimney-piece, and a tortoiseshell
cat with a collar on the oilskin cover of a square table, who rose as
though half resenting strange visitors; then, after stretching,
decided on some haven less liable to disturbance, and went through the
window to it without effort, emotion, or sound. There was a clock
under a glass cover on the chimney-piece whose works you could see
through, with a fascinating ratchet movement of perfect grace and
punctuality. Also a vertical orange-yellow glass vase, twisted to a
spiral, and full of spills. Also the leaning tower of Pisa, done small
in alabaster. He could see all these things quite plainly, and but
that his tongue seemed to have s