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glad to escape to the platform.
There, however, a group of idlers followed us about and stood in
a ring round us when we stopped to interview a railway official.
The beautiful, bronzehaired, oxeyed young woman in her
disreputable attireI have never seen a broken black feather
waggle more shamelesslywas a sight indeed to strike wonderment
into the cockney mind. And perhaps her association with myself
added to the incongruity. I am long and lean and unlovely, I
know; but it is my consolation that I look irreproachably
respectable. Of the two I was infinitely the more disturbed by
the public attention. Calm and unembarrassed as a fate she
returned the popular gaze, and appeared somewhat bored by my
efforts to find Harry. In the midst of an earnest discussion
with the stationmaster she begged me for a penny to put into
an automatic sweetmeat machine, which she had seen a small
boy work successfully. I refused, curtly, and turned to the
stationmaster. A roar of laughter interrupted me again.
Carlotta, with outstretched hand and pleading eyes, like an
organgrinder's monkey, had induced the boy to part with the
sticky bit of toffee, and was in the act of conveying it to
her mouth.
I'll call tomorrow morning, said I hurriedly to the
stationmaster. If the gentleman should come meanwhile,
tell him to leave his name and address.
Then I took Carlotta by the arm and, accompanied by my train of
satellites, I thrust her into the first hansomcab I could see.
There was no sign or token of Harry. No pretty young man was
hanging dejectedly about the station. None had torn his hair
before the officials asking for news of a lost female in frowsy
black. There was no Harry. There was no further need therefore
to afford the British public a gratuitous entertainment.
Drive, said I to the cabman. Drive like the devil.
Where to, sir?
I gasped. Where should I drive? I lost my head.
Go on driving round and round till I tell you to stop. The
philosophic cabman did not regard me as eccentric, for he whipped
up his horse cheerfully. When we had slid down the steep incline
and got free of the precincts of that hateful station, I breathed
more freely and collected my wits. Carlotta sucked her sticky
thumbs and wiped them on her dress.
Where are we going? she asked.
Across Waterloo Bridge, said I.
What to do?
To dispose of you somehow, I replied, grimly. But how, I
haven't a notion. There's a Home for Lost Dogs and a Home for
Stray Cats, and a Lost Property Office at Scotland Yard, but as

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