f against a bookshelf to give him
room. Jim followed him through the shop; saw him cross the doorstep
and turn away down the pavement to the left; stared in his wake until
the darkness and the traffic swallowed him; and returned, softly
whistling, to the little parlour.

'Drunk's the simplest explanation,' he announced.

'But how did he know my name?' demanded Chrissy. 'And the
suit-case!'

'Eh?' He's left it--well, if this doesn't beat the band!--Here,
Wenham nip after the man and tell him he left his luggage behind!'
Jim stooped to lift the case by the handle.

'But it's Dick's!'

'Dick's?'

'It's the suit-case I gave him--my birthday present last April.
See, there are his initials!'

CHAPTER V.

Dick Rendal, alighting at Waterloo, collected his luggage--or rather,
Mr Markham's--methodically; saw it hoisted on a four-wheeler; and,
handing the cabby two shillings, told him to deliver it at an address
in Park Lane, where the butler would pay him his exact fare. This
done, he sought the telegraph office and sent three more cablegrams,
the concise wording of which he had carefully evolved on the way up
from Southampton. These do not come into the story,--which may
digress, however, so far as to tell that on receipt of one of them,
the Vice-President of the Hands Across Central New York Office
remarked to his secretary 'that the old warrior was losing no time.
Leisure and ozone would appear to have bucked him up.' To which the
secretary answered that it was lucky for civilisation if Mr Markham
missed suspecting, or he'd infallibly make a corner in both.

Having despatched his orders, Dick Rendal felt in his pockets for a
cigar-case; was annoyed and amused (in a sub-conscious sort of way)
to find only a briar pipe and a pocketful of coarse-cut tobacco;
filled and lit his pipe, and started to walk.

His way led him across Westminster Bridge, up through Whitehall, and
brought him to the steps of that building which, among all the great
London clubs, most exorbitantly resembles a palace. He mounted its
perron with the springy confident step of youth; and that same spring
and confidence of gait carried him past the usually vigilant porter.
A marble staircase led him to the lordliest smoking-room in London.
He frowned, perceiving that his favourite arm-chair was occupied by a
somnolent Judge of the High Court, and catching up the _Revue des
Deux Mondes_, settled himself in a window-bay commanding the g