The experience gained there was invaluable, and led me, after one particularly interesting piece of business in which I had the good fortune to be most successful, to entertain the notion of quitting Government employ altogether, and setting up for myself.

I did so, and soon had more work upon my hand than I could very well accomplish.

But I was too ambitious to be content with small things, and eventually came to the conclusion that there was not enough scope in the Colonies for me.

After fifteen years' absence, therefore, I returned to England, spending a year in the Further East _en route_ in order to enlarge my experience, and to qualify myself for any work that might come to me from that quarter.
On a certain bitterly cold day in January I reached Liverpool from the United States, and took the train for my old home.

My father and mother had long since died, and now all that remained to me of them was the stone slab that covered their resting place in the quiet little churchyard at the foot of the hill.
"Well, here I am," I said to myself, "thirty-three years old, and alone in the world.