ers, jumped on to it. The fat rascal in whose carriage I was seated ordered the coachman to drive on faster, and I was not sorry to be relieved of most of our escort. But the other carri

t town it was that I had come to. It was evidently a place of considerable importance and a

s were like those of any other large town, and the people

arrested-walked amongst the rest with an air far more assured than was customary; and the well-dressed people seemed to have rather a hang-dog sort of look

I lost no time in making a somewhat violent protest to the sergeant in cha

it had first been made, and entered in the sergeant's ledger. The ragged man appeared before the formalities were concluded, and, to my now painful bewilderment, was treated with ma

subserviency with which he was treated. But the disguise was so complete that my indi

I saw that no more notice was going

n on his dirty face, and Mr. Perry with a

know, who will come to my assistance. I d

make it worse by being impudent. You know well enough what place

h we had entered, and rather to my surprise found myself in a carpeted passage. We pass

ught to be better treated; but we're pretty full up, and you'll only be he

door, which he immediately shut and locked after me, l

eet square; for as I put out my hands I found I could touch the walls on all sides. What mad piece of inhumanity was this, to add to the burlesque charge on which I was to be tried! There was not even a stool to sit down

esently I desisted, determined

f relief I recognized as an electric switch. I turned it, and the place was flooded with light. Then I d

nothing else. I shut it and opened the next, and found myself

ick iron bars. It was this fact that brought it home to me that, incredible as it might appear, this room, with a comfortable armchair by the win

ng out of the parlour was a little bedroom, with the sheets turned down o

little; but since this convenient little self-contained flat was mine to make myself at h

lled the words of the policeman, before he had pressed the half-crown into my hand and

hat of soft felt, and a flannel shirt with a low collar and a whisp of an old tie; and my boots, white with dust, were an easy but unlovely pair that I kept for these expeditions. No, my

authorities of this extraordinary town, whose identity puzzled me more and more, to house their prisoners like potentates, since

an to feel hungry; and such was the effect upon me of my surroundings that I looked around me, almost without intention

front rather crumpled, he had the appearance of a servant at a would-be smart restaurant, ready to do what was wanted of him, but having no very high opinion of the person from whom h

ecautionary measure, before making any selection, I s

f course not. Choose whatever yo

otatoes, a slice of ham with madeira sauce and spinach, a péche Melba, angels on horseback, and some s

d, "if there's not

pay nothing at all for anything you have as long as you are here, and if you

gether object to that," I said,

kay, and another of Chateau d'Yquem, a pint of Pommery, 1900, and a bottle of '68 port to sit with later on. He looked

the moment," I said. "Have

he said; "but I need scarcely say

d. "And I should like one or two really good cigars, fairly strong-something

d the outer door behind him. However inexplicable my treatm

hrough, I fell fast asleep in the easy chair by the open window, through whic

had laid the table without disturbing me, and had put a vase of roses in t

ght my evening clothes,"

santry, and his air of high s

soners in this way?" I asked hi

surprising reply, which I turned over in my mind before I said: "This seems a topsy-t

" he said acidly, "but if you have the impudence to addr

ttentively behind my chair. He wa

that game," I said, with my eye on hi

"Because if it is--;" and he t

threatening to retaliate on a waiter who proposed to punch one's head, and I wanted to fi

e serving me with the readiest attention to the matter in hand. We did not address another word to

o. He took the glass, sniffed at the wine, and tasted it. "It's absolutely

as he was away fetching it, if in some way I was not to pay

easy chair, and indicated, but without saying so, that he wished to clear away. This he did, in complete silence; but before he finally left the

ter the manner of a cabman who has been offered t

ck, gave me half a crown ins

oyed, and five shillings in money. Why, but for my last question, it wou