“Everybody thought I was jolly well killed, and I could just see the air thick with blackguard faces, getting their first bit of real fun for the day, when I suppose I must have become unconscious from the shock for the time being. Anyway, on regaining my senses, I found myself in a bed of mud and rotten oranges, with three policemen and about fifty busybodies, all arguing cheerfully over me, as if I was a lost child. Most of them hoped I was dead, and showed their disappointment openly when I recovered again. Two doctors--so they said they were--had also turned up from somewhere, and taken a general survey of me while I was in no condition to prevent them. After that I need hardly tell you I’ve lost my watch. “The question appeared to be my destination, and now the policeman who had told me to move on explained, at great length, that depended entirely on whether I was physically shattered or still intact. If I was all right save for the loss of my hat and the gain of an extra coat or two of mud, the man had arranged to take me to a police-station for interfering with a fire-engine in the execution of its duty, or some rot of that sort; but if, on the other hand, I was broken up and perhaps mortally injured, then it struck him as a case for a stretcher and a hospital. “They were still arguing about this when I came to. Upon which the constable invited my opinion, and explained the two courses open to him. He seemed indifferent and practically left it to me; so, as I felt the police-station would probably represent the simplest and shortest ordeal, and as, moreover, so far as I could judge at the time, I was little the worse in body for the downfall, I decided in that direction. I told him I was all right and had mercifully escaped. Whereupon he congratulated me in a friendly spirit and took me in charge.” Thus Bellamy: and when the man had finished, we spoke further for the space of about two minutes and a half, then parted, by mutual understanding, to meet no more. “I’m sorry for you,” I said. “We were both wrong and both right. The truth is that there’s a golden mean in the matter of advice, as in most things. Probably the proportions of good and bad are about equal, though I am not prepared to allow that our experiments can be regarded as in any sense conclusive.” “And as to the bet, I suppose we may say it’s off?” asked Norton Bellamy. “I imagine you’ve had enough of this unique tomfoolery, and I know I have. I’m a mass of bruises and may be smashed internally for all I know, not to mention my watch.” “Yes,” I replied, “the wager must be regarded as no longer existing. We have both suffered sufficiently, and if we proceeded with it _quod avertat Deus_, some enduring tribulation would probably overtake one or both of us. And a final word, Bellamy. As you know, we have never been friends; our natures and idiosyncrasies always prevented any mutual regard; and this tragedy of to-day must be said to banish even mutual respect.”