Little as I shared, however, though I could not fail to perceive, the cardiac exaltation of these five females, I have always looked back to that first visit with a very considerable degree of pleasure, and not the less so because of the preliminary service that I was able to render their brother Ezekiel. Indeed it was this that led to an invitation to share the evening meal at the Stools’ house, a substantial residence with a large garden, about five minutes’ walk from Camberwell Green. A November dusk, some eighteen months or so after my entrance into commercial life, I had forgotten that it was the anniversary of the attempt of Guy Fawkes to destroy the Upper Chamber of our Legislature, and my thoughts were engaged upon other matters as I began to walk home from the omnibus stopping-place. I had hardly walked a hundred yards, however, when my attention was suddenly attracted to a somewhat vociferous group of boys, in the midst of whom, to my surprise and anxiety, I saw my friend Ezekiel Stool. For a moment I was at a loss both as how to proceed and the possible reason for the conclave. But a moment later I discovered that the position was no less disturbing than grotesque. Doubtless intoxicated with the memories of the day, these ignorant and turbulent youths had apparently discerned in my friend Ezekiel a resemblance to the conspirator of 1605. Nay, they had gone further. They had professed to perceive in him an actual reincarnation of the original miscreant, and this in spite of the fact that Ezekiel had repeatedly explained to them that he had no knowledge of pyrotechnics. “Believe me,” he had said, “I am neither the man you mention, nor do I resemble any authentic portrait of him. Nor have I placed explosives under anybody’s chamber either in London or the Provinces.”