“I’ll have no more of this tommy rot, or the pair of you’ll have to come along to the station,” he said. “As for you, Muggridge, it’s your old game, plantin’ your rubbishy, stinkin’ varmints on unoffendin’ characters before they can open their mouths. I’m up to your hanky-panky; and you”--now he addressed me--“if you’re not old enough to know better than come buyin’ these ’ere hanimals, an’ loadin’ a cab with ’em, just because this man asks you to, you ought to be shut up. If you take my tip, you’ll go and ’ang yourself--that’s about the best thing you can do. Anyway, clear out of this ’ere shop.” I was deeply agitated, hysterical, not master of my words or actions; I had reached a physical and mental condition upon which the policeman’s words fell as a fitting climax. “Thank you,” I said; “I’ve had some unequal advice to-day--good, bad, and indifferent. But there’s no doubt that yours is the best, the soundest, the most suited to my case that I’m likely to get anywhere. I _will_ go and hang myself. Nothing shall become my life like the leaving of it. Shake hands, constable; you at least have counselled well.” I pressed his palm and was gone. I forgot wife, children, business, honour, and Heaven in that awful moment. I, a member of the Committee of the Stock Exchange, passed through the streets of London like a mere escaped lunatic. My shattered, lacerated nerve-centres cried for peace and oblivion; I longed to be dead and out of it all. My self-respect was already dead, and what is life without that? I thought of the future after this nightmare-day, and felt that there could be no future for me. So I vanished into the fog--a palpitating pariah with one frantic, overmastering resolution--to destroy myself, and that at once. “Norton Bellamy has murdered me,” I said aloud. II But a man cannot forget the training of his youth, the practice of his adult years, and the support of his middle age in one demonian hour. As I passed wildly through dim, bilious abysses of filth-laden atmosphere, though my body was soon lost, and hopelessly lost, in the fog, my mind became a trifle clearer and the steadfast principles of a lifetime reasserted themselves. I determined to go on with my shattered existence; indeed I felt tolerably sure that my fellow-man, who had kept me thus busily employed, would presently prevent me from carrying my purpose to its bitter end. I grew a little calmer, recollected the terms of my wager, and so proceeded with the directions delivered by the police constable, doubting nothing but that my next meeting with a human being would divert the catastrophe, and once more set me forward upon a new road.