Yet as that other company approached the splendid truth burst upon me. Vagrants, policemen, and rioting boys mainly composed it; but in the place of chief dishonour walked Norton Bellamy. He, too, it would seem, had violated the laws of his country. He too, by devious and probably painful ways, had drifted into Seven Dials, and there lost his freedom. An even-handed Nemesis, whose operations yet remained hidden from me, had clearly punished Bellamy for rejecting the advice of his fellow-man, even as she had chastened me for accepting it. And from cursory appearances it looked as though Bellamy had endured even more varied torments than my own. One might have thought that attempts had been made to clean the highway with him. He was dripping with mud, he lacked a hat, his white waistcoat awoke even a passing pity in my heart, and yet the large placidity, the awful calm of a fallen spirit, sat on Bellamy. He had doubtless exploded, detonated, boiled over, fumed, foamed, fretted, and thundered to his utmost limit. His bolt was shot, his venom was gone; he stood before me reduced to the potency of a mere empty cartridge-case. We met each other’s glance simultaneously, and a sort of savage and foggy beam of joy flitted across his muddy face; while for my part I doubt not that some passing expression of pleasure, which tact and humanity instantly extinguished, also illuminated my features. Our retinues mingled, and for a moment we had speech together. Needless to say, the discovery that we were acquainted proved a source of much gratification to the crowd. “Great Scott! You!” gasped out Bellamy. “What have you done?” “Practically nothing,” I answered; “but what I have suffered no tongue can tell and no human being will ever know. It is sufficient to say that I am here because I was deliberately advised by a fellow-creature to go and hang myself.” “They told you to do that?” he asked, with keen but suppressed excitement. “They did.” He was silent for an instant, pondering this thing, while joy and sorrow mingled on his countenance. Then he answered me. “I’ll write your cheque the first moment I get back to the office. You were right. There is more good advice given than bad. I’ve proved it too. If I’d done half what I was told to-day, I----” Here our respective guardians separated us, and we marched to our destination in silence; but about five or six minutes later we sat side by side in a police-station, and were permitted to renew our conversation. “You’ve had a stirring day, no doubt,” Bellamy began, while he scraped mud off himself. “Tell me your yarn, then I’ll tell you mine. But how is it, if somebody advised you to go and hang yourself, that you are here now? You’ll have to explain that first as a matter of honour.” I explained, and it must be confessed that my words sounded weak. It is certain, at any rate, that they did not convince Bellamy.