customary loiterers, even to the middle-aged woman with the ulster and

the handbag, fled to more congenial scenes. As in the inmost dells of

some small tropic island the throbbing of the ocean lingers, so here a

faint pervading hum and trepidation told in every corner of surrounding

London.

At the hour already named, persons acquainted with John Dickson, of

Ballarat, and Ezra Thomas, of the United States of America, would have

been cheered to behold them enter through the booking-office.

'What names are we to take?' enquired the latter, anxiously adjusting

the window-glass spectacles which he had been suffered on this occasion

to assume.

'There's no choice for you, my boy,' returned Michael. 'Bent Pitman

or nothing. As for me, I think I look as if I might be called Appleby;

something agreeably old-world about Appleby--breathes of Devonshire

cider. Talking of which, suppose you wet your whistle? the interview is

likely to be trying.'

'I think I'll wait till afterwards,' returned Pitman; 'on the whole, I

think I'll wait till the thing's over. I don't know if it strikes you

as it does me; but the place seems deserted and silent, Mr Finsbury, and

filled with very singular echoes.'

'Kind of Jack-in-the-box feeling?' enquired Michael, 'as if all these

234

The Wrong Box