"Now then," he said good-naturedly. "Could you tell me the way to"--I tried to think of some place near my London--"to Westminster Abbey?" He looked at me in astonishment. His feeling seemed to be that I was too late for the Coronation and too early for the morning service. "Or--or anywhere," I said hurriedly. "Trams, for instance." He pointed nervously to the right and disappeared. Imagine my joy; there were tramlines, and better still, a tram approaching. I tumbled in, gave the conductor a penny, and got a workman's ticket in exchange. Ten minutes later we reached the terminus. I had wondered where we should arrive, but didn't much mind so long as I was again within reach of a cab. However, as soon as I stepped out of the tram, I knew at once where I was. "Tell me," I said to the conductor, "do you now go back again?" "In ten minutes. There's a tram from here every half-hour." "When is the last?" "There's no last. Backwards and forwards all night." I should have liked to stop and sympathise, but it was getting late. I walked a hundred yards up the hill and turned to the right.... As I entered the gates I could hear the sound of music. "Isn't this our dance?" I said to Miss White, who was taking a breather at the hall door. "One moment," I added and I got out of my coat and umbrella. "Is it? I thought you'd gone." "Oh, no, I decided to stay, after all. I found out that the trams go all night." We walked in together. "I won't be more autobiographical than I can help," I said, "but I must say it's hard life, a doctor's. One is called away in the middle of a dance to a difficult case of--of mumps or something, and--well, there you are. A delightful evening spoilt. If one is lucky one may get back in time for a waltz or two at the end. "Indeed," I said, as we began to dance, "at one time to-night I quite thought I wasn't going to get back here at all." XVII. THE FINANCIER This is how I became a West African mining magnate with a stake in the Empire. During February I grew suddenly tired of waiting for the summer to begin. London in the summer is a pleasant place, and chiefly so because you can keep on buying evening papers to read the cricket news. In February life has no such excitements to offer. So I wrote to my solicitor about it. "I want you," I wrote, "to buy me fifty rubber shares, so that I can watch them go up and down." And I added, "Brokerage one-eighth," to show that I knew what I was talking about. He replied tersely as follows: "Don't be a fool. If you have any money to invest I can get you a safe mortgage at five per cent. Let me know." It's a funny thing how the minds of solicitors run upon mortgages. If they would only stop to think for a moment they would see that you couldn't possibly watch a safe mortgage go up and down. I left my solicitor alone and consulted Henry on the subject. In the intervals between golf and golf Henry dabbles in finance.