me a cross-country journey, finishing with the
District Railway and a seven minutes' walk. It was now past mid-day,
and the tarry wood-pavement was good to smell as I strode up the Earl's
Court Road. It was great to walk the civilized world again. Here were
men with coats on their backs, and ladies in gloves. My only fear was
lest I might run up against one or other whom I had known of old. But
it was my lucky day. I felt it in my bones. I was going to get this
berth; and sometimes I should be able to smell the wood-pavement on the
old boy's errands; perhaps he would insist on skimming over it in his
bath-chair, with me behind.

I felt quite nervous when I reached the flats. They were a small pile
in a side street, and I pitied the doctor whose plate I saw upon the
palings before the ground-floor windows; he must be in a very small
way, I thought. I rather pitied myself as well. I had indulged in
visions of better flats than these. There were no balconies. The
porter was out of livery. There was no lift, and my invalid on the
third floor! I trudged up, wishing I had never lived in Mount Street,
and brushed against a dejected individual coming down. A full-blooded
young fellow in a frock-coat flung the right door open at my summons.

"Does Mr. Maturin live here?" I inquired.

"That's right," said the full-blooded young man, grinning all over a
convivial countenance.

"I--I've come about his advertisement in the Daily Mail."

"You're the thirty-ninth," cried the blood; "that was the thirty-eighth
you met upon the stairs, and the day's still young. Excuse my staring
at you. Yes, you pass your prelim., and can come inside; you're one of
the few. We had most just after breakfast, but now the porter's
heading off the worst cases, and that last chap was the first for
twenty minutes. Come in here."

And I was ushered into an empty room with a good bay-window, which
enabled my full-blooded friend to inspect me yet more critically in a
good light; this he did without the least false delicacy; then his
questions began.

"'Varsity man?"

"No."

"Public school?"

"Yes."

"Which one?"

I told him, and he sighed relief.

"At last! You're the very first I've not had to argue with as to what
is and what is not a public school. Expelled?"

"No," I said, after a moment's hesitation; "no, I was not expelled.
And I hope you won't expel me if I ask a question in my turn?"

"Certainly not."

"Ar