There was a fascination in returning stride by stride to the rattle and roar of the metal tyres upon London's stones. Denis felt it through the depths of his blank misery and impotent rage; he only wondered that the noise had never struck him in the morning. Now he picked it up plain at Hendon, and it reminded him of its miniature--the first far sound of Ballarat--as it seemed to rise with each ringing step he took. His body was bathed in perspiration; never had he walked so many miles at such a rate. But a vague object had developed on the way. By half-past nine he was in London's throat; and now he might have been walking on cotton-wool. Never had he heard such an uproar: it was Saturday night. Edgware Road was a vast trench of stalls and barrows, lurid with naked flames, strident with hoarse voices, only Denis was not Londoner enough to know that it was Edgware Road. He had the vaguest ideas as to where he was, until, on asking his way to the London Tavern, he was invited to take his choice between the glaring illuminations of several London taverns before his eyes. After that he applied to a constable, and next minute sat cooling in a hansom cab. The hansom beat up into the east in a series of short tacks, grinding endless curbstones as she went about, but at last emerging into latitudes less unknown to Denis. There was St. Paul's Cathedral, perhaps his westernmost landmark, though he had once or twice threaded Temple Bar: so the London Tavern was somewhere in the city. The sailor began to feel at home. The offices of Merridew and Devenish were in one of these silent streets. How silent and deserted they were! What a change from the Edgware Road! And this was London's hub, that he had imagined deafening and congested at all hours of the twenty-four: that sleeping palace was the Royal Exchange: this black monolith the Bank. At the first oasis of light and life the cab drew up. "London Tavern, sir," said a voice overhead. Denis dismissed the cab and found himself confronted by an overpowering Cerberus, who desired to know what he could do for him, but Denis scarcely knew himself. His impressions in the cab had been acute but superficial. The mind's core was still stunned. He had to think hard in order to recall the resolve which had brought him hither; a burst of applause through the tall lighted windows came to his aid in the nick of time. "I want to see a gentleman who is dining here." "What, now?" sniffed Cerberus. "Before he leaves." "I could take in your card," condescended the other, who had probably heard the thanks which Denis had earned from his cabman, "when the Lord Mayor's said what he 'as to say, if it's anythink very important." "To me it is," said Denis, "and I pray that it may prove equally so to him; but it will be time enough after the banquet, and I can take care of myself meanwhile."