I may have imagined much and exaggerated the rest.

Yet what truth there was in my suspicions you shall duly see.

I felt sure that I was followed in the street, and my every movement dogged by those to whom I would not condescend to turn and look.

Meanwhile, I had not the courage to go near my club, and the Temple was a place where I was accosted in every court, effusively congratulated on the marvellous preservation of my stale spoilt life, and invited right and left to spin my yarn over a quiet pipe! Well, perhaps such invitations were not so common as they have grown in my memory; nor must you confuse my then feelings on all these matters with those which I entertain as I write.

I have grown older, and, I hope, something kindlier and wiser since then.