ahead--three
turns or corners ahead, as it were--there broke suddenly a sort of
noise, clattering, and confused cries, and then stopped. Then, when it
happened, something, I can't describe it--a kind of shake or stagger
went down the line, as if the line were a live thing, whose head had
been struck, or had been an electric cord. None of us knew why we were
moving, but we moved and jostled. Then we recovered, and went on
through the little dirty streets, round corners, and up twisted ways.
The little crooked streets began to give me a feeling I can't
explain--as if it were a dream. I felt as if things had lost their
reason, and we should never get out of the maze. Odd to hear me talk
like that, isn't it? The streets were quite well-known streets, all
down on the map. But the fact remains. I wasn't afraid of something
happening. I was afraid of nothing ever happening--nothing ever
happening for all God's eternity."

He drained his glass and called for more whisky. He drank it, and went
on.

"And then something did happen. Buck, it's the solemn truth, that
nothing has ever happened to you in your life. Nothing had ever
happened to me in my life."

"Nothing ever happened!" said Buck, staring. "What do you mean?"

"Nothing has ever happened," repeated Barker, with a morbid obstinacy.
"You don't know what a thing happening means? You sit in your office
expecting customers, and customers come; you walk in the street
expecting friends, and friends meet you; you want a drink, and get it;
you feel inclined for a bet, and make it. You expect either to win or
lose, and you do either one or the other. But things happening!" and
he shuddered ungovernably.

"Go on," said Buck, shortly. "Get on."

"As we walked wearily round the corners, something happened. When
something happens, it happens first, and you see it afterwards. It
happens of itself, and you have nothing to do with it. It proves a
dreadful thing--that there are other things besides one's self. I can
only put it in this way. We went round one turning, two turnings,
three turnings, four turnings, five. Then I lifted myself slowly up
from the gutter where I had been shot half senseless, and was beaten
down again by living men crashing on top of me, and the world was full
of roaring, and big men rolling about like nine-pins."

Buck looked at his map with knitted brows.

"Was that Portobello Road?" he asked.

"Yes," said Barker--"yes; Portobello Road. I saw it aft