"It was almost years since I saw a tree that was not black," he said; "the water used to drip through the roof of my garret, and there was a family in the room on the opposite side of the landing. I don't think you can understand what this house means to me. Perhaps I don't understand myself. I'm almost afraid to go to sleep at night for fear I should wake up in Union Street and find it all a fairy story. Mr. Gessner says I am to stop with them always--but he might change his mind and then it would be Commercial Road again--if I had the courage to go back there." Forrest had known evil times himself, and he could honestly appreciate the possibility. "Stick by the old horse while he sticks by you," was his candid advice. "I expect he's under a pretty stiff obligation to some of your people who are gone, and this is how he's paying it. You take all the corn you can get and put it in your nose-bag. Anna herself tells me that the old man is only happy while you are in the house. Play up to it, old chap, and grease your wheels while the can's going round." This very worldy advice fell upon ears strikingly deficient in understanding subtleties. Alban could not dislike Forrest, though he tried his best to do so. There was something sympathetic about the fellow, rogue that he was, and even shrewd men admitted his fascination. When the Captain proposed that they should go down to the West End of London and see a little of life together, Alban consented gladly. New experiences set him hungering after those supposed delights which were made so much of in the newspapers. He reflected how very little he really knew of the world and its people. It was a day of early June when they set off in that very single brougham which had carried Silas Geary to Whitechapel. The Captain, having first ascertained the amount of money in his friend's possession, proposed a light lunch in the restaurant of the Savoy, and there, to do him justice, he was amusing enough. "People are all giving up houses and living in restaurants nowadays," he said as they sat at table. "I don't blame 'em either. Just think of the number of nags in those big stables, all eating their heads off and smoking your best cigars--eh, what? Why, I kept myself in weeds a few years ago--got 'em for twopence halfpenny from a butler in Curzon Street and never smoked better. You don't want to do that, for you can bottle old Bluebeard's and try 'em on the dog--eh, what? When you marry, don't you take a house. A man who lives in a hotel doesn't seem as though he were married and that's good for the filly. Look at these angels here. Why, half of them sold the family oak tree a generation ago, and Attenborough down the street will tell you what their Tiffanies are worth. They live in hotels because it's cheaper, and they wear French paste because the other is at uncle's. That's the truth, my boy, and all the world knows it."