'Why, man, do you suppose I make a practice of cutting about London with my clients in disguise?
Do you suppose money would induce me to touch this business with a stick?
I give you my word of honour, it would not.

But I own I have a real curiosity to see how you conduct this interview--that tempts me; it tempts me, Pitman, more than gold--it should be exquisitely rich.' And suddenly Michael laughed.

'Well, Pitman,' said he, 'have all the truck ready in the studio.

I'll go.' About twenty minutes after two, on this eventful day, the vast and gloomy shed of Waterloo lay, like the temple of a dead religion, silent and deserted.

Here and there at one of the platforms, a train lay becalmed; here and there a wandering footfall echoed; the cab-horses outside stamped with startling reverberations on the stones; or from the neighbouring wilderness of railway an engine snorted forth a whistle.
The main-line departure platform slumbered like the rest; the booking-hutches closed; the backs of Mr Haggard's novels, with which upon a weekday the bookstall shines emblazoned, discreetly hidden behind dingy shutters; the rare officials, undisguisedly somnambulant; and the customary loiterers, even to the middle-aged woman with the ulster and the handbag, fled to more congenial scenes.