What could a man do under the circumstances?
Nothing, if human and fallible, I should say, but what the Major did--stay there, laughing and joking, and talking of old times, and freshen up his honest heart, and shake his honest sides with many an old half-forgotten tale of fun and mischief.
"Now," he said at last, "you must let me go.

You Barton (to the first man he had recognised), you are a married man; what are you doing at Crockford's ?" "The same as you are," said the other,--"standing outside the door.

The pavement's free, I suppose.

I haven't been in such a place these five years.

Where are you staying, old boy ?" The Major told them, and they agreed to meet at breakfast next morning.
Then, after many farewells, and callings back, he pursued his way towards the Strand, finding to his disgust that it was nearly ten o'clock.
He, nevertheless, held on his way undiscouraged, and turning by degrees into narrower and narrower streets, came at last on one quieter than the others, which ended abruptly at the river.
It was a quiet street, save at one point, and that was where a blaze of gas (then recently introduced, and a great object of curiosity to the Major) was thrown across the street, from the broad ornamented windows of a flash public-house.